Apple Stepping Up Environmental Friendliness with New Halogen-Free Cables
The London Evening Standard reports (via GigaOM) that Apple is requiring cable supplier Volex to spend up to $6 million retooling its production lines to eliminate halogens from the power and USB cables used in the company's products. The move will make the cables less toxic to the environment upon disposal.
Apple is the biggest customer of Volex, 23%-owned by billionaire financier Nat Rothschild, which makes the power cables and USB leads used in everything from laptops to iPhones and iPads.
But the US firm is on a drive to move its products towards halogen-free power cables, which are less harmful to the environment when disposed of.
The start-up costs in designing and making the new cables will cost it up to $6 million in the current financial year, Volex said today, although, stripping out these one-off costs, profits will be in line with market expectation.
Apple has in the past received criticism from environmental advocacy groups such as Greenpeace, but the company has been performing better in recent surveys as it has continued to shift to more environmentally-friendly alternatives and has become more open about its efforts on the environmental front.

In 2009, the company launched an expanded environmental footprint section of its website to help provide information on its impact and progress in the area.
Popular Stories
Apple today released iOS 16.4, the fourth major update to the iOS 16 operating system that initially came out last September. iOS 16.4 comes two months after the launch of iOS 16.3, an update that added Security Keys for Apple ID.
iOS 16.4 and iPadOS 16.4 can be downloaded on eligible iPhones and iPads over-the-air by going to Settings > General > Software Update. It can take a few minutes...
Following nearly six weeks of beta testing, iOS 16.4 is expected to be released to the public as soon as this week. The software update includes a handful of new features and changes for the iPhone 8 and newer. To install an iOS update, open the Settings app on the iPhone, tap General → Software Update, and follow the on-screen instructions.
Below, we have recapped eight new features and...
Some Apple employees are concerned about the usefulness and price point of the company's upcoming mixed-reality headset, The New York Times reports.
Apple headset concept by David Lewis and Marcus Kane Initial enthusiasm around the device at the company has apparently become skepticism, according to eight current and former Apple employees speaking to The New York Times. The change of tone...
Apple changed the strategy for iOS 17 later in its development process to add several new features, suggesting that the update may be more significant than previously thought, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports.
In January, Gurman said that iOS 17 could be a less significant update than iPhone updates in previous years due to the company's intense focus on its long-awaited mixed-reality...
Apple today released tvOS 16.4, the fourth major point update to the tvOS 16 operating system that came out last September. Available for the Apple TV 4K and Apple TV HD, tvOS 16.4 comes two months following the release of tvOS 16.3.
The tvOS 16.4 update can be downloaded over the air through the Settings app on the Apple TV by going to System > Software Update....
Apple showcased its mixed-reality headset to the company's top 100 executives in the Steve Jobs Theater last week, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
In the latest edition of his "Power On" newsletter, Gurman explained that the "momentous gathering" is a "key milestone" ahead of the headset's public announcement planned for June. The event was intended to rally Apple's top members of...
Apple today published a support document explaining why it decided to release a standalone Apple Music Classical app for classical music.
In short, Apple says the app was designed to support classical music's complex metadata:Classical music is different. It has longer and more detailed titles, multiple artists for each work, and hundreds of recordings of well-known pieces. The Apple Music...
The iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max will use a new ultra-low energy microprocessor allowing certain features like the new capacitive solid-state buttons to remain functional even when the handset is powered off or the battery has run out, according to a source that shared details on the MacRumors forums.
CAD-based render of new solid-state buttons on iPhone 15 Pro models The source of this rumor is ...
Top Rated Comments
I dunno how you all get away with it. It's happened to the majority of the cables I own. Here's my desk at work, right now:
That cable sits on my desk its entire life. It doesn't travel or go in and out of bags. I never pull it out of the phone by tugging the cable. It just sits there. And yet, that happens.
Right. Speaking of cars, they illustrate the point well A significant amount of a car's lifetime carbon emissions comes from its manufacture. So generally, its better for the environment to keep an old car on the road longer, rather than produce a new, more efficient one. Longer lasting stuff = a reduction in energy and waste.
It's also interesting how Apple touts glass as such a highly recyclable material, and that it starting placing a sheet of it in front of every display not too long after all the hubbub about them not using environmentally friendly materials. But in reality, the glass (in all but the touchscreen devices) is entirely unnecessary. It simply adds more material to the device, which is against the 'reduce' principle. (Not to mention the reflections it adds to the displayworse than even a normal gloss display.) So you have to wonder how much of this is genuine concern for the environment, and how much is just marketing.
Yes, I, and dozens of other posters here at Mac rumors have been lying to you for years. We've been pulling on the cables and telling you we don't.
You got us.