Your ‘recycled’ laptop may end up in an illegal Asian scrapyard | Hacker News Reader

Your ‘recycled’ laptop may end up in an illegal Asian scrapyard

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The more I learn about what happens to the electronic waste we produce, it impacts my buying habits. I've been considering replacing my 2012 Macbook Air with a new Macbook, but maybe I should just keep using it as long as is absolutely possible. I mean, it still works even if it is a bit sluggish.

What would really be better was if I could upgrade it. That would help minimize waste. The screen works perfectly fine, but I'd have to buy a whole new screen (and everything) just to upgrade it.

Maybe I won't buy Apple anymore. Maybe I'll find a laptop that lets me upgrade components and run Linux instead. (Any suggestions?)

I'm not going to personally have a material impact on the solution, but I can change my habits, and maybe convince others to change theirs. If more people knew what happens to their waste, maybe they'd change their habits too.

You can sell every single part of your MacBook Air.

LCD, keyboard, trackpad, SSD logic board, power board, wifi card, etc. Even the screws.

I sold every single component of mine (except the battery which was put into a bin at ikea).

Just follow the ifixit guides and buy one of the% $2 screwdrivers.

It behooves you to do so to keep other units out of the e-waste trade.

% the screwdrivers, you don’t have to buy it from ifixit.

Did you sell them on EBay?

Yes. With ample re-use of bubble wrap and cardboard from other Ebay and Amazon packaging.

That's a great idea, I'll look into that. Hadn't thought of scrapping it for parts.

Have you ever thought about switching to a desktop? You could keep the screen, and case, and other peripherals. It'd be cheaper, and there'd be less e-waste, and you could more conceivably use the desktop for a longer period of it. My 2011 desktop PC can even play modern games, and the only upgrades have been RAM and video cards.

Well, I already have a desktop computer too. So if I'm going to make my little contribution to the problem by having two computers, the least I can do is minimize my impact in other ways.

If you're concerned about waste, you could donate your old devices to an individual you personally know who would use them.

Young children and "hand me downs" are the prototypical case for this.

I definitely plan on doing that. If I am going to get rid of my old device I'd like to find someone who will continue to use it.

But I thought Apple has a reputable and serious consumer electronics recycling program; why do you think going with another laptop vendor would be better?

Here is an article criticizing Apple recycling practices. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-ip...

The idea is:

- Recycling is done by third parties

- Recyclers who are part of Apple's program are not allowed to salvage the part, they must shred.

- Only a small part of Apple products are recycled through their program.

It’s truly horrible given how difficult it is to get OEM parts. This also means tons of old MacBooks are profitable to salvage for parts.

Apple is also one of the companies most responsible for this I-can't-fix-it-let-alone-upgrade-it garbage. Do you want to support a company that's creating a large amount of the problems, too?

I'm still running an HP Pavilion from 2008 that's got a GPU strapped to it and an external monitor connected to that. It's actually capable of playing games now, (esports titles, such as CS:GO, run perfectly fine on there), but part of that is because it has a quad-core i7 mobile CPU that more or less equates to a lower-tier i5 or higher tier i3. I also have a little 14-ish inch laptop made by the same manufacturer at the same time (it has an AMD CPU) that runs really slowly even though it has an SSD in it.

I also have a bunch of stuff laying around that I don't use- such as a FX-era computer with a dual-core machine, that's not even worth the trouble of setting up, and a Pentium III machine that I don't even bother with because ugh. There's a balance to be found between not wasting things, and not wasting money keeping them running- if your car is constantly breaking down, it might be time to send it to the junkyard and get a new one, but for heaven's sake, please make sure that wherever your trash is going there aren't going to be abused workers dealing with it.

   why do you think going with another laptop vendor would be better?

There is an entire community of people running old ThinkPads and repairing them and upgrading them, because they are well-thought-out products that can withstand life, meanwhile dropping your macbook means that you've probably broken your screen and getting the full device replaced is going to be cheaper.

A friend gave me a Mid-2011 MacBookAir4,2 because some keys died, the battery lasts less than an hour on a charge, and it freezes up regularly when running MacOS. I installed Linux on it and connected it to my 4K TV (at 1080p resolution). I use a wireless keyboard and mouse with it. It runs flawlessly, and since the fan rarely kicks in, it's replaced a much more powerful (but loud) tower PC. I mainly use it for surfing the web and streaming music, with some light YouTube use. It's no longer very useful as a portable laptop, but it's a great media PC. I have some even older 2009 white MacBook5,2s that run Linux fine, as will most Intel MacBooks manufactured in 2015 or earlier. They also tend to have fast WiFi cards, so performance seems better than their processors would suggest. It's a shame to see them scrapped when they can be creatively repurposed.

You may be able to solve current and/or future problems if you replace the thermal compound.

The MNT Reform[1] is an interesting option, although it's not available quite yet. One thing in particular your post made me think of is the fact that they've changed the battery to a bunch of 18650s that you can swap out at your leisure. Also, it's all completely open with schematic and source code online, and they mention that if they make a RISC-V board, it'll fit in this one's chassis.

[1] https://mntre.com/media/news_md/2019-05-20-reintroducing-ref...

I’m sure someone could find a use for an old working computer or a non profit. Unlike 10 years ago, a 10 year old computer is still useful and can run modern software and get on the internet.

I had a 2006 Core Duo Mac Mini 1.66Ghz with a 60GB hard drive, 1.25GB RAM and gigabit Ethernet. It’s useless as a Mac and Apple abandoned it years ago. But, I put Windows 7 on it, installed a Chrome and my mom installed Office 2010 and she uses it as a secondary computer when she tutors.

I bought a refurbished all in one Sony Desktop back in 2007 - a Core Duo 1.66GHz, 2Gb RAM, 1600x1050 display 19 inch display, 250GB hard drive 10/100 Ethernet. I installed Windows 7 on it to and it’s my moms primary computer. She uses it with Chrome and Office.

I was given my 2009-2010 era Dell when the company I was working for collapsed. 8GB of RAM, Core 2 Duo 2.66Ghz, gigabit Ethernet, one of the last great 1920x1200 displays. The only times it feels slow even today running Windows 10 is reading and writing from the spinning hard drive. That could be improved by replacing it with an SSD. It served as my Plex server until earlier this year. It struggled with 1080p video but it did alright at lower resolutions up to two streams.

Then there is my Pentium Dual Core for 2009 with 4GB RAM that I put Windows 7 on. It would still be good for someone. It has a 1600x900 display and 802.11n wireless.

But don’t just give people the old computer as is. Clean it up and install the OS from scratch.

I volunteer a lot for a large charity thrift shop. I strongly caution against this idea.

Old electronics are absolutely the most difficult thing for us to sell, and they take up considerable space. A 10 year old computer is essentially worthless, because at the very least it's pretty easy to get a 5 year old computer for free or nearly free. The idea that "it is still usable" is not the right way to think about it. The right way to think about it is "are there any people who would want this computer, even for free", and I can tell you with a lot of evidence that the answer is basically "no".

The simple fact is we are just swimming in too much obsolete e-waste. IMO sales of electronic devices should be appropriately taxed with a "cleanup" tax to pay for their eventual responsible disposal/recycling.

I didn’t say “donate it for sell”. Every example I listed was someone had a need for a computer and give it to them. There are charities that need computers to use. Talk to them first and see if they actually have a use for them, clean them up, install the software they need and give them training and support.

Don’t just give an old desktop with no cords, without a mouse, monitor etc.

My point still stands. The charity that owns the thrift store where I volunteer has about twenty paid staff that work in an office. Trust me, they don't want to be using your 10 year old computer either, that's much more likely to break, and be incompatible with other software, and this would only be compounded exponentially if the sole IT person needed to support 20 different obsolete machines. You say "install the software they need and give them training and support." So you're going to be available if they call you at 3pm on a Tuesday because your 10 year-old hard drive failed?

Look, I'm not saying there is absolutely no one that wants your machine, but one of my biggest pet peeves after volunteering in a thrift store for so long is people who donate items that no one really wants, primarily to assuage their guilt. Sometimes garbage is just garbage.

What will in my example a 10 year old Mac Mini with USB 2, Bluetooth, gigabit Ethernet running Windows 7 and the latest version of Chrome be incompatible with? A lot of software these days are run from a web browser.

My 8 year old Core 2 Duo running Windows 10 can run my entire development stack - VSCode with Python, Node, and C#. I tried it and until it starts swapping, you can’t tell the difference in normal use.

As far as support. How is it easier or harder to support an older computer running Windows + Office + Chrome than a newer computer?

In fact my new computer I bought in 2016 has the same amount of RAM - 8GB, a slightly worse display (1920x1080 vs 1920x1200), and no gigabit Ethernet as my old Dell from 2009.

I have a laptop manufactured somewhere around 2008 or 2009. For a long time it worked with Windows XP, but recently I had to upgrade it to Debian because website and software developers have been intentionally breaking Windows XP support.

It is fully working, it has Core 2 Duo CPU and 4 Gb of RAM (I would like to install more, but Intel made a limitation in their chipset, probably for planned obsolence. Lack of RAM is the main problem when using Firefox and Electron apps like Skype), and I am sure that there are people who would be happy to get such laptop. Maybe not in US, but in Russia and in other developing countries there are people who cannot afford buying a new one.

So I think that you are wrong about nobody wanting to get a 10 years old computer.

This attitude of "poor people would love my garbage, look at how generous I am!" is rarely accurate.

I don't think it is yet a garbage.

Today, there is so much you can do with a computer with nothing but an updated version of Chrome, that’s all many people need. Add on Office, and you have everything you need. So a computer that can use Chrome + Office + Dropbox and you’re good. That’s all I use any of my non work computers for besides as a Plex Server.

My Core 2 Duo was my Plex server until earlier this year and I would use it for browsing or personal stuff with Office often.

I used my 2006 era Mac Mini running Windows 7 as a secondary family computer until 2015 running Chrome + MS Office.

Dépends who you are. The wealthy in a lot of poorer countries are often wealthy through 1 of 2 means: resource extraction or being the gatekeeper to products and services.

Those wealthy groups may not be too happy with the competitions/disruption of a small-time entrepreneur bringing in a container full of still-useful 2nd-hand stuff and providing them inexpensively.

I agree that old computers, or for the matter of fact several old electronic devices can re-purposed to serve some task; but one main conflict of interest I find against it is 'power-efficiency'.

If we're aiming for planet friendly activity, we should consider saving power as well & A cheap 7th Gen intel U series CPU or AMD G series APU is much more power efficient than the intel Core 2 Duo.

Apart from huge leaps in performance, the associated ecosystem of electronics with it is power efficient as well.

With everything moving toward the web, increased performance doesn’t really make a difference in a lot of use cases. The biggest performance hit is usually slow hard drives and lack of RAM. You can still get away with 4GB of RAM

I agree that we can do 'something with' that 12-15 years old laptop; but that 4 GB DDR2 is wasting power which can be saved by using 7-8 years old DDR3L or 3-4 years old DDR4L.

Dell sells computers today with 4GB of RAM running Windows 10 home.

https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-desktop-computers/inspi...

As does Microsoft.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/microsoft-surface-go-10-touch-s...

I used one. It’s much worse than my Core 2 Duo from 2009 with 8GB of RAM, the screen is smaller and it has a lower resolution (1800x1200 vs 1920x1200). It feels much slower.

As an off topic aside, of course it’s much worse than my $379 2018 iPad with 2GB of RAM.

So the illegal part here is the lack of protections for the environment and workers, which is valid, but there's no reason for "recycled" to be in scare quotes; the process described is literally recycling. Unregulated recycling that's bad for the environment, but it's still breaking down waste into useful raw materials, so it still counts.

EDIT: Another objection to the framing here:

> “American people should address this issue. You have to fix your own problems. Don’t dump waste into Thailand — or any developing country.”

... or, you could not accept it. Y'know, "fix your own problems" rather than pointing your finger at big bad America.

America exercises significant control over our poorer trade partners, and we have great power here. We could require oversight and review of our e-waste recycling partners, or we can just dump our waste out of sight and claim no responsibility in the matter. One approach would solve the problem, and one shifts blame to someone much less power to really solve the problem.

That’s still hard to do. I think consumers would care more if we just held unreliable manufacturers to account.

Either make stuff that keeps working or the manufacturer has to pay to repair it. We do it with cars (lemon law), why not everything else that’s repairable.

Spare parts must be available, or else.

Repair schematics must be made available. A competitor can reverse engineer anything anyway, so the benefit of being secretive is outweighed by consumer interests.

Finally, more effort toward “second-lifing” old stuff instead of shredding it. E.g. old phones as security cameras.

You don't need all those weird rules, all you need is a recycling tax on the product, and let market forces sort it out.

How do you determine the tax? Is the government to determine how long different car models and manufacturers will last?

Even if you charge a flat tax ($50 per laptop), there’s still little incentive for the manufacturer to provide ongoing support.

Don’t underestimate the power of marketing to convince people to ignore the future.

That $50 flat tax will also make it harder for anyone new to compete (the practicality of which seems to be getting higher instead of lower with all these SBC's and the like). Don't underestimate the power of law to shape the future of companies, and which ones survive.

We probably could do better with re-use. A lot of stuff isn’t as disposable as people think, but they throw it out anyway.

A broken HDTV could be a matter of re-seating a Cable, replacing a fuse (why aren’t they resettable???), or a new backlight or power supply board. But the average person will just toss it to the curb.

Even if they tried to repair it in Asia, it’s already further destroyed.

In other words, we should treat waste electronics more like wrecked cars.

There are a lot of weasel words and problems with tone in the article. It struck me as more a propaganda piece than anything else.

I agree, but still some useful points made: there’s lots of garbage poorly processed overseas, and one country trying to fix the problem can just push the problem elsewhere.

A coordinated approach is required.

Or improve the supply side (which is already happening, like RoHS and more integration). E.g. Set top boxes aren’t the size of VCRs anymore.

That's why we need to create a culture of durable and expandable computer hardware, something completely opposite of current Apple consumer offering.

Shame on companies that glue batteries to the enclosure and do similar atrocities, explaining the purpose of it as the product being a bit thinner (as if anybody cared) with the hidden motive of planned obsolescence.

Gluing batteries and similar techniques make products more robust to damage. Apple hardware is absolutely famous for surviving far longer than competing products. A 10 yr old functioning Mac is not unusual.

Will a current-generation Apple laptop fare the ten years as well as they did ten years ago? A lot, probably even most, of the Apple unrepairability hate has developed within these last ten years.

> A 10 yr old functioning Mac is not unusual.

This means that Apple was good 10 years ago.

I have a Dell laptop from 2009 and one built in 2018. I very much care about the difference in size and weight between the two.

This was my work laptop in 2009 that I wrote about in another post. I still own it. I know how unwieldy it is compared to what you can get today.

http://www.notebookreview.com/notebookreview/dell-latitude-e...

“I’ve been investigating these guys, and they look just like normal businessmen. So, what makes them stand out? No matter which [illegal factory] we raid, we always find the owner is from China.”

Chinese opportunists can no longer get away with it in China, so they are exploiting nearby developing nations to do their dirty work.

China is catching up on USA's special talents.

As long as I’m told it was recycled, I’m fine.

I know I’m being lied to constantly and there’s nothing I can do about it.

> Basel Action Network or BAN, a Seattle-based nonprofit, for years, has stuck GPS trackers in old electronic junk. They found that scrapyard in Thailand by planting a tracker in a TV and dropping it off at an Australian recycling center.

Not that they likely to get in trouble, but is it legal to put trackers even if it is donations? What if you stuck a camera and microphone in the TV and it ended up in someone’s home after being repaired.

These aren’t traditional cell phones, think more GPS units with a cellular chip so they can report back their location.

One issue with these is they have batteries, and are placed in devices like printers that no e-scrap processor ever checks for batteries. Many US domestic processors use large shredding systems to liberate the materials. Batteries and shredders don’t mix!

Yeah, that's a good point. There are batteries that don't explode when poked, right?

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