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Comment by madeofpalk | Hacker News Reader

That already happens, but on a different scale. When Apple has to repair or replace an iPhone, they're giving you a remanufactured iPhone using reused internal parts like screws or shielding. This is factored into the costs of an iPhone which keeps them 'lower' / profit margins higher.

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> they're giving you a remanufactured iPhone using reused internal parts like screws or shielding

And, unless something changed recently, batteries. My iPhone 5 had a faulty charging socket, which got worse. A month after unboxing, it would no longer charge at all, so I handed it in for repair. Got back a unit with half the battery life and a faulty charging socket.

I gave it to a good GSoC student across the world after a second unsuccessful trip to service

Consumable parts are and have never been reused. Just sounds like you had a faulty part, rather than a reused one.

> Consumable parts are and have never been reused

Are phone parts "consumable"? I thought "consumable" meant refers to things that get "used up" like milk, ink, pens, etc., not storage media or LCD screens or the like...

Batteries can be consumable after a fashion, as they lose capacity with each charge cycle. The effect can be reduced via certain techniques (depending on the battery chemistry involved), but so far never completely eliminated. Just consider it entropy in action, really.

Is there any way to reclaim the resources in a "used up" battery to reintroduce them to the production chain?

You absolutely can, but it's currently not cost-effective. On the other hand it looks like it's cheap enough that making it mandatory or putting a recycling deposit on batteries would be viable.

Are battery recycling programs near you not feasible? Our local Home Depot and Best Buy stores will take back rechargeable batteries for recycling for free.

Do they recycle all of a lithium ion battery?

Very little of the physical (the lithium). However all of the precious materials (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_recycling#Lithium_ion_...).

It's not worth it to extract the lithium, monetarily speaking.

> Consumable parts are and have never been reused

Can you substantiate that? It's clearly at odds with my experience, neither of my two replacement units had a battery life that even came close to unboxed unit.

I just don't buy that every serviced device gets a new battery.

(I am in Europe by the way)

I thought the iPhone 5 had a pretty good iFixit score. The Teardown was a 7 out of 10 [0], which is one of the highest scores they've given.

[0]: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+5+Teardown/10525

Unfortunately, what ends up happening in most cases is that people make products, give them a ridiculous 1y or 2y warranty, then claim that if there're any problems after that time period you'll have to pay to repair or replace.

In our country we have a law that states a product has to live up to it's reasonably expected life time. So while a manufacturer might give it a warranty and the retailer might give it some special warranty, ultimately, the retailer (which in some cases is the manufacturer if you buy directly) is responsible no matter what. That doesn't go for consumables or software, or if you break it yourself obviously, but a phone or computer for example is of course expected to work for at least 4 or 5 years or so. So if it breaks, you are entitled to support and/or repairs, which also has a limitation on any administrative fees that might apply. It pretty much applies to everything, from cars to washing machines to faucets to electric toothbrushes.

What country? This sounds like a great way to poison a court system with bullshit lawsuits.

Non common law countries don't tend towards lawsuits as much. They tend towards legislation and then administrative enforcement.

The UK has this law, and I believe it's standardised across the EU.

In Europe I think it's 2 years, which is quite low.

The main EU rule is that you have to have a minimum 2 year warranty. A number of electronics vendors, famously including Apple, had to up their game as a result of this.

However, that is in addition to various other statutory consumer rights about fitness for purpose and being of appropriate quality, which EU member states might have in their national laws as well. Here in the UK, for example, those obligations can run for many years beyond the initial warranty, and can result in repair, replacement or (full or partial) refund for faulty products depending on the circumstances.

In most cases, it's the vendor who took your money who is on the hook legally for these kinds of responsibilities, though in practice of course manufacturers often offer their own warranties to the final customers and/or make supporting arrangements with vendors selling their products.

Unfortunately at present most of these rules only apply to private individuals, and with business purchases caveat emptor and expensive service contracts are often the norm even if a purchase is being made by a small business with no more real leverage against a vendor or manufacturer than a private individual. When it comes to electronic devices like phones and laptops, this is potentially quite a big stumbling block in terms of forcing up standards of maintainability and promoting a "right to repair" to reduce waste.

i think I understand it different, they must give you 2 years warranty, but maybe he is saying they must help you with repair/support (with your own money) 4-5 years

kinda similar like car parts, warranty is like 3-5 years (or 100K km) but parts must be available like 10 years or something

Sounds like New Zealand and the consumers guarantees act

Norway also has this law.

How is "reasonably expected life time" defined?

The same way 'reasonable' is defined everywhere in the law: it's up to the interpretation of the court.

A digression, but I doubt screws are one of the parts the retain for re-manufactured devices, is that really true? I thought those screws they use with the thread-lock coatings were only rated for one insertion.

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