No. That's just wrong. First, just the contract itself should be enough. The customer wants these devices destroyed, and the recycler agreed and took the money to destroy them - they can't just renege on that deal. They took the money to destroy them. Full stop - we're done here.

Why would Apple want these devices destroyed? Well .. many reasons. Maybe they can't guarantee safety of those devices. Electronics, especially with high-capacity batteries need to pass rigorous standards to be sold on the market. If Apple expects these devices to be destroyed, they will not be performing any safety checks. If one of these devices blows-up and kills a customer - who is liable?

There are other reasons why Apple may want them destroyed. Maybe these devices will put pressure on their support and warranty services. Or maybe many of these devices have structural issues that cannot be fixed fully leading to bad end-user experience with the product. Or maybe those devices on the market will eat into their market share. Or a bunch of reasons (good or bad) that neither you nor I can come up with because we don't know actually know that business (so why are you arm-chair quarterbacking this?)

>Force the company to ship them to a developing country or somewhere else where it won't hurt your sale of new phones as much, but stop destroying the planet for $$$

You can seriously impact a local or a national economy of a developing nation when a rich nations dumps crap it doesn't want on your market. Most developing nations will have anti-dumping laws as well.

In any sustainable system Apple should either be the first interested in repairing those devices or forced to do it.

You can create a policy to price the externalities of recycling the electronic device (and that may be a necessary policy), but to be clear, it will be shared between Apple and the consumer through higher-prices - which will impact the poor disproportionally. Maybe that's a good thing, but I always find it interesting that people just point the finger at the manufacturer and not the consumer that ultimately buys the products and tosses it (usually without properly recycling it). It's the same kind of garbage as trying to blame Exxon for extracting petroleum and ignoring the SUV in your driveway.

>In any sustainable system Apple should either be the first interested in repairing those devices or forced to do it.

You don't even know what's wrong with these devices.

Why would it be wrong to make this practice illegal going forward? There are clear environmental impacts in desctroyiing functional devices.

Of course Apple has all kinds of reasons why this makes sense for them. Doesn't mean those reasons are necessarily in the interest of the public, so the public doesn't have to accept them.

Because it's a poorly thought-out policy created and pushed by people that may not (and clearly do not) understand the market, the space or the unintended consequences that arise from it.

>There are clear environmental impacts in desctroyiing functional devices.

And we also have clear liability and legal reasons for destroying 'functional devices'.

>Doesn't mean those reasons are necessarily in the interest of the public

Preventing devices that the manufacturer has not certified as safe from being distributed to the public is also in the interest of the public.

Every device that is currently made will end up in a landfill. Having the manufacturer and consumer responsible for these externalities is not a terrible policy, but this is not how you do it.

Then the batteries should be replaceable -- who pioneered non replaceable phone batteries?

Or maybe those devices on the market will eat into their market share.

Bingo. Profits before planet.

You missed the point because you have a narrative you want to fit this situation into. The big picture is that there are valid reasons for sending devices to a landfill.

Every device that is currently made will end up in a landfill. Having the manufacturer and consumer responsible for these externalities is not a terrible policy, but this is not how you do it.

>Bingo. Profits before planet.

You're just a one-trick pony, aren't you? That you are writing this insightful commentary on a computing device that will end up in a landfill within the next 2 to 5 years, I'm sure, is lost on you.

I agree, but a dangerous battery should not be one of them because batteries should be replaceable.

Not the parent, but I am writing this comment on Pinephone, which definitely will not end up in a landfill within the next 2 to 5 years, because it's openness enables unlimited support. See also: Librem 5 with lifetime support.

I am confident in arguing, however, that in whatever regulatory regime we are in, there will be times and good reasons for destroying or landfilling devices.

I'm happy you have a secondhand Thinkpad. And I'm happy you got an endorphin rush for telling people on the internet that you have a secondhand Thinkpad - but you are going to landfill that device. Also, I hate Apple devices. I think OSX is overrated, and both OSX and iOS have terrible ergonomics. And yes, Mac computers and laptops are overpriced and their quality varies from year to year.

> Apple contracted a recycler to destroy the devices, and those devices made it out to the market, breaking contractual obligations.

There are definitely broken obligations, but who invented those obligations in the first place and why? Apple did it for profit and user control, against environment and ethics. This is the actual problem here.

Contract law. If you want to change the entire legal regime underpinning these kinds of contracts, that's a big (and separate) discussion.

>Apple did it for profit and user control, against environment and ethics

You don't know that. You're speculating. It's not clear that this policy against environmental initiatives or it is unethical. Besides, environmental concerns need to be balanced with other factors. Our company contracts IronMountain to destroy old disk drives - our interpretation of this is that IronMountain will in fact securely destroy those drives and not resell them on the market, EVEN IF that would be more friendly to the environment.

Why not? If it’s because they’re a trillion-dollar company, then it’s a matter of scale, and every business from Apple down to the corner lemonade stand needs to be held to the same standard.

Would you have been glad to see those 14 mpg cars shipped to Mexico to be reused and the emissions just sent overseas?

It's not clear to me that 'clunkers' were a net benefit to society. Maybe getting rid of them was the correct choice. I don't know what the answer is, but I think there is probably more to consider than car emissions.

This really impacts poor / low-income families and individuals- lots of people can barely afford to feed, clothe, and house themselves, and the increasing costs of transportation can really really sting, and may make it harder for them to find stable employment.

The financial stimulus of Cash For Clunkers is now long-gone, but poor people- and, for that matter, teenagers buying their first vehicle- are still feeling the aftershocks of it in the form of higher vehicle prices across the board.

> Would you have been glad to see those 14 mpg cars shipped to Mexico to be reused and the emissions just sent overseas?

If it means better lives for the people the vehicles are going to, then yes, I do.

(yes 2 tenths of a percent, 2 vehicles out of 1000)

~170,000,000 new cars have been sold in the meantime (so assume tens of millions of used car transactions related to that).

It was a blip. It's more likely that other factors are driving the change in the market.

I'm fine with making companies pay for externalities of manufacturing, but if you own something, it's yours to do with as you wish.

Counterpoint: This may not actually cause companies to change their behaviour, it might simply create market barriers, which will be beneficial for companies with the necessary capital - i.e., it will just mean you have to be rich enough to be allowed to pollute the environment.

> but if you own something, it's yours to do with as you wish.

This is not true. We put restrictions on all kinds of actions if they have a high likelihood of causing damage. This is why you're allowed to own fertilizer but are still not allowed to build a bomb with it. This is also why you need a driver's license to operate a vehicle.

You're technically mostly right, but you're also comparing building a bomb to Apple recycling old phones. Your rights end where my rights begin. Driving a car without a license is an example of that. You don't have a right to an iPhone.

By sending to a "country of need" we immediately run the risk that end up in the countryside or disposed of improperly and that unless you just happen to land in a country with sufficient infrastructure to even support the devices they just end up as curiosities.

It is very easy to be altruistic when no analysis is involved in determining the true cost of such actions. As in, many ideas sound great on paper but are so unfeasible to actually worse than doing nothing.

That's perfectly fine and I agree, but this has zero bearing on the current case.

Wouldn't it be worse for the planet? First - shipping these across the globe is also destroying the planet. Secondly - many developing countries are not really recycling old electronics, they just dump them into the wasteland, which makes it even worse for the planet.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/china...

What I don't support is when people think that existing laws and rights in contracts should just be suspended or ignored because the outcome favors their side.

Go put what you want into laws. Don't take pleasure in having laws ignored. It will come to bite you sooner than you think.