What’s the context?
Humane’s Ai Pin and other AI wearables are difficult to recycle, threatening to worsen the world’s global e-waste problem.
This article is a bit of a mess. What the fuck does AI have to do with the amount of glue used in a device?
And why focus on a limited run from a failed product rather than the literal millions of successful wearable products like airpods that are equally hard to recycle?
Also
Meanwhile, the use of the technology is only expected to grow.
Very insightful
Oh and not to question the professor’s expertise but you can’t blame the consumers for this one. Literally NOBODY asked for one of these pins.
“These products are designed based on the consumers’ desires and affordability,” said Berrin Tansel, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Florida International University.
Making them easier to recycle would require the cost of the material recovery process to be fronted by the manufacturer, making them more expensive, Tansel told Context.
I mean, this sucks, but Apple’s Airpods are far more egregious, far more numerous (something like 550 million+ versus 10,000+ AI pins), and have spawned an army of copycats all which cannot be repaired and are just ewaste waiting to happen.
It’s really that the entire fucking industry just doesn’t god damned care and I can’t even find places that reliably take electronic waste like desktops and laptops, let alone this fucking horseshit. USA produces massive amounts of ewaste and basically is like “fuck it” on creating a recycling industry around it.
This problems goes so far beyond these dinky AI pins.
Futurama was making jokes about the horrors of ewaste in its first return run in 2013, it’s 2025 and it’s only gotten worse.
Apple recycles AirPods. There’s no trade in value, but you can bring them to any Apple Store, or fill out the form for a mail in label.
It’s better if you can just use the same equipment forever by replacing the battery.
What happens to them then?
