I haven't written an update to my 'Final Exam' series - which reflected on my experience of becoming a bona fide soccer fan in America through the lens of Champions League Finals - since the 2015 contest. It might be worth a reboot given what has transpired since then - most notably for me the resurgence of Liverpool into an elite presence on the sport's biggest stage.
This year's final, however, will likely remain forever etched in my memory for non-sporting reasons. As plucky underdogs Bayern Munich maneuvered their way around upstart PSG, a line of thunderstorms barreled east across the commonwealth of pigskins and foul lines toward my little corner-kicking sanctuary. I can't remember exactly when the action started, but the air was soon filled with the percussive outbursts of an angry summer storm, and the space between me and the final was filled with an electric humidity that swirled through my apartment with more urgency than Neymar's desperate crusade to tie the score.
The final whistle was a starting gun; the rain drum-rolled rooftops and I strolled to the window for a front-row seat. A snap! But this wasn't nature, this was different, it was behind me... it had come from inside. I looked around with growing dread. A mouse? I couldn't see anything amiss in the apartment - again! The sound was right in front of me, ear level, and this time I saw it - the screen of an old iPod was separated, separating, and with each crack of its final song the plastic was rising slowly like a drawbridge making way for a showboat, or FFP tilting at the windmill of integrity. I pondered the irony that dead batteries have enough energy to explode, but collected myself to conduct a little research at Internet University; my findings suggested this was indeed a big problem, but no emergency. I moved the mousetrap-shaped iPod onto the stone of my faux fireplace - which I hoped was at least real enough to be fireproof - and I went out for a run in the relative calm of a wet and windy night under a lightning-streaked sky; it was comforting to remind myself with each stride that if I did die in the tempest, I wouldn't have to worry about the iPod.
The next day, I cursed my survival before grudgingly making space in my work schedule for a lunchtime trip to the Apple store; I had learned in my research that the tech giant will accept any of its products for recycling. I was actually quite nervous as I made the forty-minute walk, during which I carried the busted iPod in a can like Homer Simpson handling a glowing rod of uranium. My focus on the transportation task kept my mind off of an unpleasant reality - I knew that if the Apple store turned me down I was out of responsible options. There was no other place in the city that would accept a lithium ion battery for recycling and it was a couple of months before the next citywide collection event; a secondary option was north via bicycle, but I wasn't too keen on pedaling with the iPod in a backpack. Apple was my last and only resort - I don't know what I would have done next, but it's hard to imagine any destination except the trash.
Fortunately, Apple was an easy partner and I had no problem submitting everything for recycling. In fact, I was so pleased I joked later with my colleagues that my odds of getting an iPhone had increased 50%, and that it was my number one choice were I to get a smartphone the next day (though I should note that the odds of actually getting a smartphone had not changed, from almost zero). But is this an appropriate way to purchase smartphones? I think so because in the context of this product - which tends to have a two-to-four year turnover cycle - I'm unaware of how to make responsible decisions for the environment except for considering eventual disposal. The question of electronic waste is not the most relevant ecological concern at the moment but this is only because we have much bigger problems; as soon as certain challenges are addressed, we will have the luxury of becoming aghast with the condition of our landfills. In the meantime, I think the best we can do is buy from a company that is doing more than my city to make recycling and disposal of electronics not only feasible, but easy; some may dispute the following out of hand, but to me the ease of the method is a vital consideration that is often overlooked by those who advocate a grassroots approach for solving the environmental crisis.
The process of writing about this experience prompted me to consider a possibility - what is preventing Apple from contracting out its recycling program to cities and towns? The obvious answer is in my note above - consumers will buy from the company because the recycling program is a competitive advantage. But I'm not convinced by this argument, mostly because Apple is so powerful it should be more concerned about building a great reputation, which it would surely accomplish by partnering with municipal recycling programs. In Boston, I generally give Mayor Walsh an A for effort (again, in my book, which I look forward to writing) and I'm sure he is up for the challenge of envisioning a world-class electronics recycling program for Boston that would benefit the environment. But isn't the best-case scenario simply replicating Apple, where anyone can walk inside and hand over a product? I can't imagine anything created by our city government would beat contracting this specific problem of recycling lithium ion batteries to a company with the expertise and commitment required of the task.
Of course, the other angle is to look at it from the company's perspective. Apple currently seems to accept all of its own products plus those of any brand it owns; it doesn't seem like a stretch to imagine it could handle other devices, but it won't just start doing it for free. But should it? Again, there is the reputation concern noted above, but I think some could add that it owes us, and should opt to proactively give back rather than waiting for a contract that allows it to break even. Apple is one of many companies that benefited from research funded by taxpayer dollars but I'm currently in the dark regarding any version of a taxpayer dividend; perhaps President Trump will take a break from his golf commitments and get around to renegotiating this 'deal', if you can call it that, where a private company hoards all the profits despite some of its success being seeded by publicly-funded research. Or to put it another way, the current terms of the deal seem to be that one company, named after a food, can be worth at least $2 trillion while millions of Americans stand in line for bread; it seems like this would be low-hanging fruit for a president who likes to renegotiate bad deals on the behalf of all Americans, but who knows - maybe he thinks standing in line is OK since it's an opportunity to check your phone, which would explain why he is constantly filling Twitter with content. He's serving the country! Or maybe like any bully, he avoids fights with opponents who stand up to him.
Anyway, while the president remains busy making America great again by carrying out important tasks like removing every mailbox in the country, perhaps it might be a nice gesture if Apple simply offered its excess capacity and helped us get started with this looming recycling crisis. It's going to be necessary, I think, because by government's myopic standards getting ahead of any problem is simply beyond the imagination. If Apple opens its recycling program, I promise to stop pointing out how they could mail every American a $2,000 check tomorrow and still be worth one trillion dollars; I promise I won't mention it every month that this sorry little landfill called TOA continues to fill the internet with its own brand of explosive, electronic garbage.
