this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2026
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This further illustrates how absolutely crazy it is to produce these devices for a single use and then just throw them away, not even making sure they can be recycled properly. It's complete madness. I hope they'll be banned soon, I think the EU is working on it.
I feel the same way about earpods.
Compared to a vape pen AirPods have insane life span. It's still bad, but not even in the same ballpark as something you usually throw away in a week or so.
You can also have your dying AirPods replaced at the battery rate of $40 too. Still doesn’t strike the overall problem, especially since Apple doesn’t advertise that replacement.
That's fine for airpods but as someone who worked retail, there's just as many $15 earbuds that break near instantly that have to be thrown away and never fixed. Those things have 3 batteries in them.
yeah, no one ever loses an airpod...
oh wait
Not sure what you mean. Are you implying that because on occasion some people will lose an AirPod they are somehow worse than vape pods that are designed to be disposed of within days after first use?
people who like the concept don't give a fuck about the environment, it's just convenient for them so fuck it.
I'm sure you'll justify it for yourself lol.
you don't need them, you just like them, and don't care that it's created an entire new class of ewaste.
People lose phones more often, huge source of e-waste that we should ban first. In fact most people wouldn't even have a reason to buy the earbuds if they didn't have a phone in the first place.
something tells me they don't just evaporate, never to be used used again, but resold.
hard to resell a single earbud.