Apple sues recycling partner of reselling iPhones, watch and iPads instead of dismantling them

Although GEEP Canada was supposed to recycle the iPhones, it instead re-sold a few hundred thousand of them, earning some money. And now Apple is suing it for the same.

Apple iPhone 5S and Apple Watch (Pixabay)

If you haven't heard about GEEP Canada, it is one of the iDevice recycling partners of Apple. The firm is responsible to take care of the e-waste and manage it since we know that Apple is not a small company and sells millions of products every year. But although GEEP Canada was supposed to recycle the iPhones, it instead re-sold a few hundred thousand of them, earning some money. And now Apple is suing it for the same. “At least 11,766 pounds of Apple devices left GEEP's premises without being destroyed - a fact that GEEP itself confirmed,” said a portion of Apple's complaint, as reported by The Logic (via AppleInsider).

It has been mentioned that Apple sent GEEP some half a million 500,000 iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches between January 2015 and December 2017. Based on Apple's audit, it was found out that around 18% of those devices sent to GEEP were still accessing the internet through cellular networks, indicating that they weren't recycled and were still functional.

So now, Apple is planning to get at least $31 million Canadian dollars from GEEP. And as usual, the recycling firm denies the claim. However, it does mention that there was a theft and has reportedly filed a third-party suit claiming that three employees stole some iDevices.

As announced by Apple earlier this year, the company aims to become a Carbon Neutral firm by 2030. This will be done by cutting down its greenhouse gas pollution by 75% and use different ways to tone down the remaining 25% of heat emissions.