In this post, I’m going to break down what happens with the construction of every Ipad.
We already know that Foxconn is an international corporation. Previously, I tried to outline how far reaching the company is and touched upon how its nature as an assembler, not a manufacturer, meant that there was an even greater global web of suppliers to Foxconn than of the companies to whom Foxconn supplied. Running through Foxconn are the combined efforts of literally hundreds of businesses, a degree of international transfer that goes relatively unnoticed during the products transfer from Foxconn’s plant to the consumers of Apple products pockets.
To being, let’s break the device down to its components.
Apple does not make the manufacturers of each separate component publically available, but some companies (like chipworks) took enough interest in the device to deconstruct it themselves and publicize their finds, which are briefly summarized below:
- CPU:
o Manufactured by Samsung
- Memory:
o Toshiba and Samsung
- Screen:
o LG Display
- Touch Sensor:
o Wintek, with the hardware responsible for integrating it into the overall system coming from Broadcom and Texas Instruments
- Case:
o Catcher Technologies
- Battery:
o Simplo Technology and Dynapack International
- Motion Sensor:
o STMicroelectronics
- Audio Driver:
o Apple
- Power Management:
o Linear Technologies
As stated, Apple doesn’t do much in regards to actual hardware development. They do design and conceptualize their products, but the actual manufacturing of the majority of the components is sourced out to other businesses that specialize in those fields. It may sound repetitious, but I want to make this clear because of how fundamental it will be for my arguments later on. As a company, Apple oversees only a small fraction of the effort that goes into making its products: It knows where and how the audio components were made and from material sourced from what location, but it has no idea how companies like Catcher, Samsung and others source their materials and labour. I aim to clarify that.
Let’s start with the case.
One of the major selling features for the iPad as well as apple products in general is their all-aluminum construction. That is to say, most of the Macbook line as well as the iPod, iPhone (in certain models) and iPad all utilize aluminum as the primary material for their chassis. Apple argues that the benefits of using Aluminum are environmental. Opposed to traditional plastics, aluminum is more easily recyclable and ‘cleaner’. It does not need to go to a landfill, and can instead simply be melted down and reformed once it has reached the end of its commercial life. That’s fantastic, but how is aluminum actually refined? This is one question that Apple does not provide an answer to.
Pictured above is a bauxite mine. Bauxite is the main ore from which raw aluminum is extracted and exchanged on the global market. As is evident, the process involved in mining Bauxite is hardly environmentally friendly; Huge areas of land are strip-mined. Furthermore, actually turning bauxite into aluminum requires a large amount of electricity. As coal burning is still the cheapest and most common method used to produce electricity in a number of countries worldwide, smelting electrically-costly aluminum is connected in how it worsens air pollution as a result of increased coal burning to fuel the electrical demands. In way, consumers of products using aluminum are nonetheless connected environmentally to those in countries that produce it. Before I continue, I’d like to show you some numbers showing the biggest Bauxite producers worldwide.
United States NA NA 20,000 40,000
Australia 62,400 63,000 5,800,000 7,900,000
Brazil 24,800 25,000 1,900,000 2,500,000
China 30,000 32,000 700,000 2,300,000
Greece 2,220 2,200 600,000 650,000
Guinea 18,000 18,000 7,400,000 8,600,000
Guyana 1,600 1,600 700,000 900,000
India 19,200 20,000 770,000 1,400,000
Jamaica 14,600 15,000 2,000,000 2,500,000
Kazakhstan 4,800 4,800 360,000 450,000
Russia 6,400 6,400 200,000 250,000
Suriname 4,900 4,500 580,000 600,000
Venezuela 5,900 5,900 320,000 350,000
Vietnam 30 30 2,100,000 5,400,000
Other countries 7,150 6,800 3,200,000 3,800,000
World total (rounded) 202,000 205,000 27,000,000 38,000,000
Bauxite refining is clearly a global business. Likewise, it has become a global ecological issue. The Australian branch of the mining corporation ALCOA recognises the environmental damage of unregulated extraction, and thus enforces strict measures upon its mines working in delicate ecosystems. Communities in India suffer severely as a result of having no companies like ALCOA that are held to a public standard. Jamaica suffers from rampant environmental pollution stemming from bauxite, and the investors in its mines originate from such supposed ecologically conscientious nations as Canada, the U.S and Norway. This being said, how then can apple argue that its usage of aluminum is environmentally conscientious? For a corporation so concerned with public perception, I doubt the reason is a simple oversight. Catcher Technologies, which mills the cases used in apple products, is Apple’s immediate connection to aluminum as an object; who supplied Catcher is either not revealed to Apple (as is likewise for the casual consumer on the Catcher website), or is seen as inconsequential as it’s two degrees of separation away from them. It’s not their problem, but the other guy’s. For our class, this ties somewhat back into Robins’ sweatshop sublime. People, realizing the vastness of the system they are incorporated in when they consume products, are unable to act in a manner that would improve the overall system. Everything demands equal attention, and the individual is unable to focus and act upon any one issue; there are thousands- All of which are equally demanding! How can the individual be expected to make a choice?
For companies like apple, this realization can perhaps be seen as being anticipated. Maybe Apple tries to tout the environmentally conscientiousness of its aluminum casings because it knows that doing so gives their consumer an answer to the sweatshop sublime. People praise apple for being environmentally safe because apple’s spinning of reality lets the consumer feel as though they have found the answer to their own inaction. They can say that they’ve addressed the global demand for attention when they buy Apple products because, as said by apple, they are doing the global environment a favour
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