Apple Users

Apple products are now made to be non-recyclable.

http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2012/07/06/apple-removes-green-electronics-certification-from-products/

This also makes it tough to repair, so the item will be discarded, i.e. landfilled, far sooner than an item which can have parts changed out if they go bad.

Do not get me wrong, I was roped in by the Apple bling too. I had an iPhone 2nd gen for about 3 years. I did purchase it second hand. I purchase as much second hand as possible, to help with environmental waste. Also, to save money. My iPhone battery is now dead. What should I do with it? It can not be recycled easily since it is epoxied together. I will probably try to sell it for parts. Much of it will still be dumpstered. My phone was one of the most expensive electronic purchases I have made, but it's lifespan was shorter than any other piece of electronics I have owned. I still have good functioning systems from the 90s that are fully capable of any typical activity that users need. My 3 y/o son has a Apple clamshell g3 that I have loaded with educational software. With Moore's law, we reached a point where 5-6 y/o hardware still has much more power than a normal user will ever use.

An Econ major needs a spreadsheet program. You could use LibreOffice. If he needs Excel, you could always use Windows in a virtualized environment to run Office.

As pretty as Apple products are, I feel bad about my purchase and the damage that I will do to the environment for making the choice of owning it.