How to Dispose of Your Airpods
Amid a slew of announcements for a new credit card , a subscription service, and something related to Oprah , Apple has finally released the second coming AirPods.
In terms of design, AirPods 2 are identical to the familiar airbags we all know and love, but when you look under the hood, the new AirPods are a much-needed upgrade: They have longer battery life and connect even faster. devices. But if you’re upgrading to the best version of our AirPods, what should you do with your old pair?
Well, as it turns out, reworking AirPods is a nightmare. You usually can’t throw them in the trash can because you have to remove the lithium battery (its only recyclable part) from the rest of the AirPod, which is next to impossible . Usually, the headphones are smelted at an e-waste disposal facility. In the case of AirPods, the non-removable battery creates a fire hazard if melted or shredded.
Throwing away lithium batteries is also a huge waste of resources, as Atlantic noted this week. Lithium batteries contain cobalt, a limited resource that is often mined under harsh conditions.
And while it’s easy to think it’s a tiny pollutant, we generate about 20 million tons of e-waste every year (Americans account for 3.4 million tons), and 60 percent of that ends up in our landfills. In the US alone, the original AirPods sold around 900,000 pairs in their first 7 months of release, which has likely grown a lot since then, meaning that millions of us are bound to dump our AirPods at some point in the future.
So what should you do when your original AirPods finally make it to the end? Well, it looks like the only solution to ensure your AirPods get redesigned is to ship them back to Apple.
The process is pretty straightforward and is part of their existing device sharing program. First, go to Apple’s exchange site , select “Other Devices” and then “Headphones and Speakers,” enter your address, and you will receive a free prepaid shipping label for your old AirPods. And if you’re wondering – no, unfortunately you won’t get a discount on the next pair. But at least the process is free and relatively painless, and you are also helping to curb the problem of e-waste.
In a phone call, an Apple spokesman confirmed that these AirPods are then handed over to e-waste recyclers, along with instructions on how to disassemble the components. This raises another important question: why not share this information with other objects (or just on the AirPod box) if it’s that simple? We may never know the answer, but for now, sending them back to Apple is your best bet and your only chance to make sure your old AirPods aren’t helping to destroy the environment.