Apple will now offer free recycling for all of its used products via its retail locations. After recently launching a mini site outlining how the company maintains its green efforts and with a new progress video on its upcoming eco friendly "Spaceship" campus in Cupertino, now the company will take all your used Apple products to ensure they are properly recycled.
Apple already takes in iPhones and iPods at a number of its global retail locations that are of good enough quality in exchange for in-store credit. According to reports, Apple has now extended the program and will be offering both recycling and gift cards (on products in good enough condition for resale) at all of its retail locations and for any of its products.
Apple's electronics recycling efforts extend much further than the new program mentioned above though, the company has diverted more than 421 million pounds of gear from landfills since 1994 via various recycling programs. In locations where Apple doesn't have physical drop‑off/pickup locations it sets up events where the company arranges "for pickup, transport, and environmentally sound recycling of electronics," 90% of which aren't even Apple products.
In 2010, the company set a goal for itself to achieve a world wide recycling collection rate of 70% of the weight of products it sold to the public in years earlier. Apple said it has consistently hit 85%, as "others in the industry" are at about 20%.
Launched Monday, the mini site along with the new recycling initiative are nicely timed with Earth Day 2014 and coincide with VP of Environmental Initiatives Lisa Jackson's goal to push Apple as a leading innovator on environmentally conscious business practices.