I think Gruber's response was pretty compelling: Apple will recycle any PC/Mac/Phone/iPod at their store or by mail free of charge. http://www.apple.com/recycling/
Here's what Sims has to say about the new Apple Systems:
""Sealed units [like the iPad] make it difficult to remove the batteries," Steve Skurnac, president of SIMS Recycling Solutions, said in a statement. "From a recycler's point of view, the hazardous components [like batteries] need to be easily separated or removed.""
If Apple is contracting with third parties to recycle systems, and those third parties don't know how to recycle the glass with an adhesive on it - then there is an issue. [Edit - In their interview, iFixit called out in particular the difficulty separating the battery from the Retina MacBook Pro case - the same concern of the President of Apple's recycling company. http://ifixit.org/2884/apple-ditches-green-standard-cuts-off...]
I just think Gruber (a podcast that I listen to, so it's clear where my biases lay) should have given a bit more credibility to Kyle Wiens. The iFixit guys know a lot about the material elements of hardware, and he did take the time to contact people in the recycling industry before making his comments.
In most cities there are shops that will replace cracked screens, do basic damage repair etc on iPads, iPods, iPhones etc. They seem to manage just fine with the units being glued.
I am guessing the issue is purely a cost one.
Moving beyond that, this raises the cost of recycling the glass, which in turn raises the cost of buying the recycled glass. This makes it a less attractive deal to manufacturers than new glass, thus giving companies less incentive to process the glass with glue.
That isn't generally true, mostly because it is valuable as long as you have glass production nearby. The UK does have a mountain of green glass as it drinks loads of wine but doesn't produce much. But this is apparently quite unusual, at least according to the Economist. - http://www.economist.com/node/9249262
Don't most recyclers just toss everything in a big shredder, run the bits and pieces through mechanical separators, and smelt each stream of fragments. It's not like bottle recyclers get all bent out of shape if there is still glue and labels on the bottles.
EDIT: inflammatory /= 10;
Electronics recyclers need to take out hazardous components such as batteries before sending computers through their shredders, because batteries can catch fire when punctured.
When we originally tore down the Retina MacBook Pro, we could not separate the battery from the upper case. The next day, after a lot of elbow grease, we were finally able to get them apart—but in the process punctured the battery, leaking hazardous goo all over.
They are fairly practiced at taking things apart, including delicate and glued-together equipment, so I'd conclude that it is a fairly strong and difficult to work with glue.
see: http://ifixit.org/2884/apple-ditches-green-standard-cuts-off...
Also see their teardown for a description of their initial, failed attempt to detach the batteries:
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook-Pro-15-Inch-Retina-Di...
For example, on http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook-Pro-with-Retina-Displ... they state " To complicate matters further, the TrackPad cable lies underneath the battery. Attempting to pry the battery off the upper case could easily sever the fragile cable, which would be bad." That is of no concern when recycling the device.
So, is there a problem recycling these new devices? I would guess so, but I do not rule out that there is a simple process to separate these parts, e.g. by heating them to a certain temperature, putting them in a microwave just long enough, or by taking apart the battery before removing it from the glass. A dedicated recycler could use some specialist procedure for recycling these things. I do doubt that that would be economically feasible, though. The amount of glass involved is just too small.
Also, chances are that that will lead to lower degree of recycling, just as white glass can be recycled better than green or brown glass, and as car windshields, being layered with some plastic, can be recycled, but likely not into new car windshields.
Are you kidding? You want to do that to a Lithium ion battery?
I still think these things will get recycled into low-quality stuff such as concrete filler, but as I said, I do not rule out that there is a relatively easy way to separate the parts that iFixit does not know about.
Those ovens with accurate temperature control and very expensive, and pretty small. And manually hooking up each battery to a discharging station is far too complicated to do in bulk.
You don't need to recycle anything at all as "concrete filler" sand works just fine.
- to give the concrete a different look
- to get rid of junk aka recycle stuff that does not have other uses.
Some links: http://www.concreteideas.com/recycled-glass-in-concrete, http://www.jnphillips.com/greenshield.asp
What about the coatings on the glass?
Most likely both. Maybe they have new glue and glue remover and want to make sure all repairs go through them, because only they have the secret glue remover.
But that would be far fetched maybe? /speculations
While this may allow Apple's customers to retain a larger amount of "warm and fuzzies", it probably doesn't pass muster for a person who is seriously concerned about environmentalism.
Apple will accept and transfer any such unit. That doesn't mean the unit actually gets recycled when it goes out Apple's back door. The recycling contractor may recycle 100% of the unit, or some lesser percentage.