Tech Trash Re-Hash
This is a sequel to the original article, “Dangers of Tech Trash”
With the exponential growth of the Internet showing no signs of slowing, the steadily incrementing stream of technology garbage, likewise, sees no hints of abatement. In 2019, I shared a report on some of the dangers associated with disposing of not-so-disposable technology. Through the research of dedicated professionals, the dirty underbelly of so-called technology recycling companies was exposed as merely shifting the responsibility for disposing tech trash from Western, developed countries to the still-developing countries in the East. At the time I wrote that article, major manufacturers of consumer electronics hadn’t shown much interest in facilitating the recycling of their end-of-life products beyond social media and advertising campaigns designed to make them appear environmentally conscious. Rather than feeling a duty to know their product’s life cycle from end-to-end, they took the latest revelation in getting the first major player to step up and find out where their tech waste was headed when they handed it off to their “recycling partner.”
In their latest major lawsuit, Apple has fallen victim to an apparent scheme by their then recycling partner, Global Electric Electronic Processing (GEEP) of Canada, which in 2019 merged with The Shift Group of Companies to become Quantum Lifecycle Partners, LP. The former company had been hired to disassemble hundreds of thousands of Apple’s signature product lines; iPhones, iPads, and watches. Unknown to Apple, however, GEEP had been skimming off usable and/or reparable devices and reselling them on secondary markets. When Apple finally conducted an audit in 2018, they found that 18% of the cellular-based devices sent for disassembly were back online, resulting in the termination of its relationship with the recycling company. The true number of devices that were resold is still unknown, as not all devices were equipped with cellular connections.
The multimillion-dollar suit, filed in Canada for jurisdictional purposes, serves to highlight another very real danger of tech trash: secondary- and black-market resellers. A company’s brand is only as good as the products that represent it, and allowing the reintroduction of rogue equipment into any market segment can be just as damaging as having produced a faulty product first-hand. End-users of discount brand-name products rarely associate with where the product was last purchased, instead relying on a brand’s reputation to enrich their image by association. When and if we see an iPhone malfunction, we don’t ask where it came from; it’s an iPhone, so it must have come from Apple. This sort of injury to Apple’s brand is duly quantified in the 31 million Canadian dollars that Apple is seeking in damages, while the recycling company blames the theft on 3 rogue employees that just so happened to be senior management.
This debacle, luckily for the environment, hasn’t stopped Apple from engaging third parties in their efforts to recycle their electronic waste. It has however opened the eyes of many others in the electronics industry, with newfound goals of preventing similar outcomes with their technology recycling partners. The essentially counterfeit nature of the products that are being resold simply isn’t worth the price of complacency in knowing where tech trash is headed. This is also a loud warning to companies that they need to verify the lifecycles of their products end-to-end before touting the greenery of any recycling initiatives.
