The Aluminum Mac Brick...Is It Green?

Apple continues to channel its green image, but is seems as though eco-friendly concerns remain secondary to company's first priority: aesthetics. The new .5 pound MacBook Air, for example, is cut from a single 2.5 pound aluminum brick, resulting in a remarkably lithe - and light - laptop, but is the process environmentally sound?

Treehugger's Jaymi Heimbuch reports:

It seems that this process allows the MacBook Pro to use 50% fewer parts. In the manufacturing stage, they start with a 2.5 pound piece of aluminum. The end structure is only 0.5 pounds (for the MacBook Air). That means that 2 pounds of aluminum is cut away.

Nevertheless, it looks like this process, despite flaws, has some real improvements for the notebook in the big picture of its lifetime and total footprint."

Hank Green over at EcoGeek, however, suggests that the unibody construction isn't green after all. Especially in consideration of the fact that his relatively old-school white plastic MacBook requires far less energy to produce.

I'm glad to see Apple focusing on the efficiency of their computers, not to mention decreasing the amount of toxic materials they contain. But this new carved-brick process isn't green, it's wasteful, and I'm happy to be sticking with my good-ol' plastic clunker.

Comments

[hypnotoad72]

George W Bush's smirk holds more intelligence than the smirk on that guy holding that pancake of a "computer" in that picture.

Thanks for the latest sales pitch. I prefer computers. Adobe just came out with a 64-bit version of Photoshop. It's for computers. The 64-bit edition doesn't work on "macs".

[wolfgangmo]

Have fun with the blue screen of death.

[sheila]

if they want to play green, they should manufacture much closer to point of sale, and definitely not in china, which is famous for mis-handling toxic byproducts of manufacturing. they should also have a mandatory recycling program where they take back all the items they manufacture and have to recycle all the parts. this applies to all the non-apple computer/phone/pda manufacturers as well. no reason why they should be singled out...

[KillTheMessenger]

Actually, Sheila, China seems to have slightly different but even more stringent electronics manufacturing rules than the rest of the World. And why, you ask, would they do that?

So it is harder for us to ship electronics products to them than the other way round.

:-)

The recycling rules you are asking for exist. Apple does have to take their products back and so does every other store. The weak point comes after that. They can hand it over to a shipping company which then sends the scrap to the developing world where they bury it in the ground or worse.

I am not saying Apple does that or any other company. I am just saying they could... if they wanted to. And since miraculously most of our electronics scrap seems to go that way, somebody has to use these shady but legal business practices.

:-)

[ccpostman]

Factories in China vary widely.

Some have barefoot kids running around them. Others are new state-of-the-art designed and run factories. There are no set quality or safety standards yet in China. Any thing goes for money. It is the wild west over there.

This is why pet dogs and babies died from poisoned foods and toys are painted with lead. Nothing is enforced or checked.

Maybe Obama will level the playing field and set some safety standards for the stuff coming in.

[JuniorNorman]

Recycling alumimun allloy doesnt take that much energy. If the recycler is hydro-powered thats better. You can get custom made laptops with the cases from stainless steel (stamped and formed). With shock protected hard drives less than the mac!

[KillTheMessenger]

Stainless would be far superior, but it would violate Steve's sense of harmony for which the thermal design trades the notebook's thickness against third degree burns on the user's legs.

:-)

[DRaymond]

Refining aluminum from bauxite is a fairly energy intensive process.

I have never liked the apple line for a couple of reasons. The first is that they are overpriced and tend to have limited connectivity. The new fifteen inch macbook has only two USB ports, the Air only one.

But more than that is their limited servicability. I am noting that Apple is only selling replacement batteries for the 13 inch macbook. I am guessing as a result that the fifteen inch Macbook, like the Air and ipods, has to be sent back to the factory for something as simple as replacing the battery. Most other models of laptops can have the hard disk replaced by an amateur in a couple of minutes, or have an expansion memory card added. Not so any apple laptop. just getting the case open to do anything is a major operation and I am expecting that these 'single piece of aluminum' cases are going to be far worse.

The 'so what' of this is that easy upgrade/repair of out of warranty units substantially extends the lifespan of laptops and makes them practical in places where 'shipping it to an authroized Apple service center' is not practical.

[TheVicar]

Um, gosh, you're wrong on several points there.

The 15-inch computer is the MacBook Pro, not a MacBook. (It may be stupid to make the names so similar, but they are different lines.) And yes, there are user-replaceable batteries available -- part number MB772LL, for those who want to verify it through the Apple Store. (And if you sent a Macbook and a battery to the store for replacement, they would give you a funny look. It's trivially easy to replace them, as they have been on all Apple laptops for at least the last decade.) The hard drive and memory were replaceable in the old Macbook, and still are in the new ones. (And both are replaceable in the Pro as well.)

Basically, what DRaymond is saying is "I haven't really looked at any of Apple's notebooks in detail since at least 2006, and probably longer". I don't necessarily mind that, but could you at least check your facts before you post?

[ccpostman]

"Sent back to the factory for something as simple" Get REAL!

I have had all my Apple computers/hardware fixed at the genius bar at the Apple Store and picked up the next day. No problems and great service. Just that simple!

I guess if you got a Mac you would miss saying these three words.....Hello Geek Squad?

[blueskybigstar]

Less parts means less energy usually. Less parts also means less payments to people who may have intellectual property rights on the pieces.

[KillTheMessenger]

In this case less parts means more payments to people who have dozens of CNC tooling machines.

:-)

[ccpostman]

Make them out of Bamboo LOL

[bluprojekt]

Actually has been done by Asus - check it out at Gizmodo: http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/laptops/first-look-asus-ecobook-bamboo-laptop-242759.php

"Now Go Away or I Will Taunt You a Second Time."

[Sumocat]

For supposedly green-thinkers, these guys are surprisingly short-sighted. One of the points Jobs made during the announcement was that the aluminum and glass in the new Macbooks are not only recyclable, but desired by recyclers. Sure, plastic is recyclable, but is it worth anyone's time to strip out? Furthermore, the aluminum and glass parts are in large solid pieces and there are fewer toxins in the new Macbooks, making it easier and safer to reclaim them. I think Apple has done more forward thinking about this than Heimbuch or Green have.

[GeeCan]

Thank you Sumocat for countering this article with another way to analyze Apple's "Green-ness." One thing is certain about Apple: they are complex and original thinkers. Before anyone lobs a criticism at Apple, he/she should think it through because chances are that Apple has thought about those criticisms before (and the thousands of permutations that branch from them) and they are a few steps ahead.

[KillTheMessenger]

Do you feel like buying a bridge? I feel like selling a couple today. There seem to be takers.

[KillTheMessenger]

Nobody will strip the glass out of these things, either. The cost for disposing the poisonous chemicals inside the LCD screens are most likely too high. They probably just dump the whole assembly in the third world eventually, anyway, after you bring it to your local recycling. The value of the aluminum is so small that it's not worth mentioning. Traditional electronics recycling only cares about two metals: gold and copper. Both are getting increasingly rare in these things, so that real recycling is a loser proposition unless somebody pays for it.

[Sumocat]

What, nobody recycles aluminum cans? There are no bins for glass at recycling centers? We already recycle aluminum and glass, and, as you have overlooked, those parts need to be removed to get to the valuable gold and copper within. Does it make more sense to dump the frame and glass (and pay a disposal fee, depending on location), or let a recycler take it? This, of course, disregards how they made it easier for a user to remove the parts for recycling before taking the innards to a recycling center.

As for the LCD, yes, there are chemicals in the display. However, there's no mercury in LED backlighting, and you can remove the top glass panel without touching the rest of the display.

[mouselion]

The energy to recycle the aluminum is greater than that used to extract raw aluminum. Meaning that, while it reduces the use of petrochemical polymer-based materials, a net gain of fossil-fuel energy is actually used (if aluminum is recycled, which it will have to be, increasingly, over time).

[KillTheMessenger]

"The energy to recycle the aluminum is greater than that used to extract raw aluminum. "

No, it's not. I don't know where that myth originates, but it's for sure not a chemistry textbook. Making aluminum from minerals is extremely energy intensive. At 15kWh/kg, seven to ten times more CO2 than aluminum is produced along the way. In comparison melting aluminum is not that energy intensive because the metal has a rather low melting point.

In any case, only aluminum that never needs to be produced and recycled is environmentally friendly aluminum.

And your point about polymers being energetically cheaper is quite correct.

[MrWampler]

This just reeks of looking for something to complain about.

Two things lept out at me:
1) allows [it] to use 50% fewer parts
2) 2.5 lb piece of aluminum [reduced to] 0.5 pounds

Aluminum is easily recyclable. That missing 2 lbs goes back into the process, kinda like cookie dough. Even if it were discarded, there is still 50% fewer parts being used to produce the machine. How much energy is saved from that missing 50%? If you've ever looked inside a computer there are parts from all over the world. That's a lot of transportation cost.

Oh, and plastic is made from petroleum - in case we forgot.

[KillTheMessenger]

The use of 50 percent fewer parts seems kind of a ridiculous argument if you look at the couple thousand components on the motherboard. There might be three instead of six mechanical parts in the case, but the overall bill of materials is essentially unchanged.

The environmentally friendliest aluminum is the aluminum that is never being produced. You might want to argue with that fact, if you like.

The main bummer is the price of the process, though. Machining such a part is expensive. Much more expensive than a molded piece. YOU, the customer, have to pay for the price difference.

Now, about the "components from all over the world" part. I don't know if that really matters as much as you think because the assembly is done in China, anyway (right, Steve?). And then they ship the product back from there. So there are thousands of parts from the US, China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and most likely a couple other countries going to China and then the whole thing comes to the US. If you shave two or three parts off, it will make no appreciable difference whatsoever.

[KillTheMessenger]

Excuse me???? They can't find a better production process than that? Hard to believe. That's how you do prototypes, not production models. It's usually way too expensive for consumer products.

OK, let's say we lose a total of 3lbs of material. How much energy would that take to produce?

Aluminum is produced with about 15kWh/kg of energy input. Add transportation etc. and we might be looking at 20kWh/kg. So for a total of three lbs. of metal that's maybe 30kWh.

The notebook consumes approx. 20W on average when running. So on a typical 12h day it would be using maybe a quarter kWh. In other words, the 30kWh for the production of the case alone are equivalent of maybe 120 days of regular business use. Maybe up to a year for non-professional use.

I would probably take plastic over aluminum, too. It's less of a lap-cooker, too.

[hypnotoad72]

Awww, but they just want to make us white people sterile from all that heat -- last I'd read, honkies will be a minority by 2019.

Google is our friend, nee stand up comedian: Search "2019 white minority"