Heads-up!
This article was penned on this same day in 2021, by a young man with a fervent obsession with tech news, as part of his highschool writing assignment. He begged passers-by’s pardon for his every so often grammatical mistakes and incompetent ways with words. Nonetheless, he left it here as a reminder for his then-dream of a career in tech review and reporting.
The context
Earlier this month, Apple released its new iPhone 13 lineup, along with the new iPad Mini 2021 and Apple Watch Series 7. As part of the company’s so-called campaign against harming the environment, the iPhone’s packaging has been redesigned to be more environmentally friendly. In addition, the new iPhone, and only the iPhone, doesn’t include wall chargers and earbuds. This change has been questioned since the iPhone 12 release, and it is brought up once again this year.
The traditional plastic wrap has been replaced by a new tear-off tab that is now made entirely out of paper. It is attached from inside of the box and can be torn or opened just once. Like the old plastic seal, this tab keeps the contents of the box intact and makes sure the package has not been tampered. By doing this, Apple claimed to have saved “600 metric tons of plastic”, with the company’s vision being to completely eliminate the use of plastic in all of its product packaging by 2025 and become 100% carbon neutral by 2030.
Similar to the previous year’s version, the new iPhone doesn’t come with the charging brick and wired EarPods. While the new anti-plastic decision seems to be more comprehensible and acceptable for users, these accessories’ removal is still hard to justify. What problems may it pose and how good will it be for the planet?
Environmental benefits of not including a charger
Based on research by the University of Bari Aldo Moro, the waste from making a phone and its accessories is 200 times the weight of the phone itself. It is produced in the process of mining for raw materials or packaging, which both emit planet-heating carbon dioxide and increase the company’s carbon footprint.
At the same time, Apple’s constant stream of new gadgets also contributes to the growing e-waste scheme. Most companies, probably Apple too, usually take the cheaper route of dumping these toxic waste into landfills, which can contaminate the environment. It is estimated that the world left behind a record amount of 53.6 million metric tons of e-waste in 2019, and the number is expected to double by 2030, which does not prove optimistic at all.
As a result, removing a couple of accessories can be translated to fewer environmental effects associated with making the products. When Apple announced the exclusion of wall chargers and earbuds from the iPhone 12 onwards to cut back on e-waste and lessen those impacts, the company got lots of kudos from field experts. Apple’s latest product release seems to continue to follow its pledge last year to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
Financial benefits of not including a charger
According to insights by Angelo Zino, a senior industry analyst of CFRA Research, Apple’s waste-cutting move is also a good and honest financial move. “Clearly the bottom line has a lot to do with it.”
Apparently, iPhone boxes, without the commonplace charging brick and wired headphones, would be considerably smaller. This results in less packaging per phone and more phones packable per shipping pallet, up to 70% more iPhones in each batch. Consequently, both packaging and shipping fees per device are expected to be reduced.
The transition to 5G is also a reason why Apple might look to save costs by including fewer accessories with its phone, tech analysts mentioned in an interview with The Verge. Since iPhone 12, the entire lineup will support 5G technology. That makes it more expensive to manufacture the latter generations, as the components that enable 5G speeds are more complex and costly. According to CCS Insight, the custom radio frequency (RF) components alone in the new iPhones will ramp up the production cost by about 30%. “Apple is going to look to cut costs in other aspects of the phone,” said Zino.
Is Apple really trying to save the environment?
A company taking a direction that is beneficial for the business and for the planet might seem like a win-win situation. In a way, yes, Apple is probably contributing to the reduction of carbon footprint. But looking at the bigger picture, these solutions feel inadequate and incompetent.
Apple’s VP of Marketing mentioned in an interview with Good Morning America that a lot of iPhone buyers already had accessories like charging brick and earphones from their previous iPhones, so it made sense for the company to remove them from the future generations’ box. However, if people decide to buy AirPods anyway, that will still be a big win for Apple but not for the planet. According to Counterpoint Research, AirPods sales have doubled every year since 2017. Apple sold roughly 197 million iPhones in 2020, and if just 5% of those people decided to add AirPods to their cart, the company would have made an additional $800 million in gross profit.
The same story goes for the wall charger, except that this choice of accessory is not optional. People have to charge their phones everyday, and while Apple is shipping a USB Type-C to Lightning cable with the phone, it is not compatible with the old 5W chargers that have USB Type-A. This means newer iPhone users will have to buy a separate USB Type-C power adapter to make use of the cable and take advantage of the fast charging technology. The company also announced that they were going back to its MagSafe charger. Ideally, they would need to produce these wireless chargers per the number of new iPhones built, which would do more harm than good to the environment.
Things would have been over right there if Apple was not against the EU’s Radio Equipment Directive to standardize charger ports. Basically, all companies are required to include USB Type-C ports in smaller devices in view of meeting the frustrations of EU consumers and reducing e-waste. This port has been implemented on every Macbook since 2018 and on newer iPads as well for transfer speed, but the company still uses the Lightning connector exclusively on the newest iPhone 13 lineup with the excuses of “innovation” and cost when converting to new hardware. All of these may prove Apple is implicitly forcing users to use its official Lightning cable and buy a separate charging brick.
Purchasing external chargers or earphones would also mean more packaging waste and delivery emissions. They will be added to either Apple’s or third-party vendors’ carbon footprint, depending on where the users get their accessories and services. That doesn’t necessarily reduce emissions overall; they are just spread among companies.
Additionally, there’s another reason why axing accessories might not be as effective as Apple predicted. Smaller packaging does mean more boxes shipped per pallet, and in theory, there should be fewer delivery trips and exhaust fumes. But according to Sara Behdad, associate professor of environmental engineering at the University of Florida, it plays out differently in real life. “Shipping to stores is based on demand,” Behdad said. The number of phones packed depends on retailers’ need and storage. Therefore, more space on a pallet doesn’t mean it will be filled, and there’s unlikely to be a significant drop in shipping emissions.
What could Apple and other companies do to reduce pollution?
Behdad explained that it’s actually really difficult to claim how sustainable and environmentally friendly a specific product could be. “New features (that claim to make products more sustainable) bring us a lot of questions.” That’s why there is usually doubt and skepticism regarding billion-dollar companies’ initiatives against serious problems like e-waste or climate change. It’s hard to advise how Apple reduces carbon footprint. The company’s removal of shrink plastic wrap on iPhone boxes is one reasonable decision, but looking into Apple’s product history, there are certain measures that the company can and should take.
Apple would have a bigger impact if its products are easier to maintain and refurbish so that they don’t become “obsolete and junk after a few years,” The Verge wrote. According to Grist and iFixit, Apple products have relatively low “repairability scores”, particularly Macbooks and AirPods whose scores have never been higher than 2 out of 10. Macbook’s soldered components are impossible to upgrade without dumping the whole PCB, while AirPods’ cylindrical lithium-ion battery is so hard to replace, leading to a shorter shelf life than traditional headphones.
As part of its environmental campaign, Apple also debuted its trade-in program, along with new robots named “Dave” and “Daisy” that disassemble iPhones and recover reusable materials. However, the company has been unclear about exchanging old incompatible chargers, which are more likely to become e-waste than the iPhones themselves. Therefore, it’s advisable that Apple bring its recycling program to the fullest by supporting and adding policies for a wider range of devices.
“Historically, I feel like they’ve really been at the forefront in terms of talking about climate change,” Zino said in an interview with The Verge. Since 2008, Apple has been leading the industry in terms of environmental awareness with impressive reports and statements. Apple is just one tech giant that has a huge influence on the industry and consumer behaviour, and it leaves the company with a lot of responsibility. “There’s so much that they can still do,” Zino added, and only time can tell how these changes affect the industry, as well as their true effects on consumers and the environment.