Why Is Every E-Waste Infographic Misleading?
The business education site MBAonline.com recently published an infographic called “The True Cost of an iPhone,” which presents some interesting facts about the iPhone’s supply chain and end-of-life. It’s been picked up a few places, including TechRepublic.
Though this infographic is considerably more comprehensive than many others about e-waste, it suffers from some of the same problems. My basic quibble with all e-waste infographics I’ve encountered is the same: numbers about e-waste are unreliable, unverifiable, and often outdated. Because the infographic form translates numbers into pretty pictures, it glosses over complexity and makes numbers seem much more solid than they are.
Why the iPad Has to be Made in China
This post originally ran with Motherboard.
The iPad’s light, sleek, simple construction belies its complex origins. There’s a lot of stuff in the iPad: aluminum and glass, of course, but also other heavy metals and toxic chemicals. And manufacturing each 1.44-pound iPad results in over 285 times its own weight in greenhouse gas emissions. The manufacturing of and material used in the iPad are two reasons why the iPad must be made in China—and not just in the ways you’d expect.
Announcing Dozuki: Making Manuals Relevant for the 21st Century
We are excited to announce Dozuki, a new way to publish manuals.
As you know, iFixit.com is the largest free repair manual in the world. We’ve made it our mission to teach real people how to do real world things—like repair their iPods or fix their cars. Our new company is a natural evolution of that same mission. Dozuki’s revolutionary documentation platform enables companies and organizations to create visually-rich manuals that can be accessed via web, iPhone, iPad, Android, and even PDF. Our step-by-step, editable online guides have been battle-tested on iFixit—and we know that they are an incredibly effective way to learn difficult processes.
We are confident that Dozuki’s cloud-hosted product suite—which includes Guidebook and Answers—will transform the state of work instructions, product support, service documentation, training, and DIY.
Check out what people are saying about Dozuki:
- Read the full press release
- VentureBeat: “Let anyone make killer technical docs”
- The Verge: “Excellent online repair guides”
- Forbes: “I think this company shows great promise”
We’d love to talk to you more about Dozuki. Contact brian@dozuki.com to learn what Dozuki can do for you or press@dozuki.com with any media inquiries.
Consumer Electronics Recycling Up 53% in 2011
The Consumer Electronics Association reported yesterday that responsible consumer electronics recycling grew to 460 million pounds in 2011, up 53% from 300 million pounds in 2010. CEA suggests the increase is a result of public awareness campaigns, such as Earth911 and CEA’s own GreenerGadgets, and the growing number of recycling facilities.
What’s in Your Toolkit?
When we visited Tech Liminal, an Oakland technology project space, after attending MacWorld | iWorld in January, some Fixit Clinic folks there let us dig around in their tool kits.
Steve Berl’s bag has two important repair staples—WD-40 for things that don’t move when they should, and duct tape for things that move when they shouldn’t. He’s carrying some iFixit gear, too: a 54-bit driver kit and helping hands. The FasTrak toll tag and Maker Faire badge add a dash of Bay Area local flavor.
Figure Out How to Track E-Waste, Win $10,000
…Just not from us. Can you figure out how to track electronic waste as it moves downstream, from electronics recyclers to its final location in waste sites, scrap markets, or remanufacturing plants? Popular Science and InnoCentive‘s latest Innovation Challenge offers a reward of up to $10,000 for the best scalable system to track electronic waste.