Chromebooks: Short service life creates 'mountains of e-waste'

The cheap Chromebooks used en masse during the course of the Covid 19 pandemic, especially in the USA, are apparently causing new “mountains of electronic waste” to arise. The problem is their short service life, which now causes environmental problems and additional costs, according to a study.

In a new report titled Chromebook Churn, the US Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) calls for schools and students to invest in more durable hardware. The PIRG refers to its own investigation, according to which many Chromebooks are defective after only three years because they have to withstand great physical stress in the educational sector.

At the same time, there are massive problems with the availability of spare parts and repairs are too expensive. For example, the PIRG tried to replace the keyboards of Acer Chromebooks in 29 cases, but in almost half of the cases replacement parts were simply not available. If there was availability, the costs were usually around 90 dollars.

Expensive spare parts and short software support

Because this is almost half the purchase price for the entire Chromebook for some devices, the effort is hardly worth it. Schools should think about the high costs when it comes to cheaply equipping students with school notebooks. The research group therefore demands that device manufacturers should reserve around 10 percent of the production of parts for their Chromebooks for repair purposes.

At the same time, the PIRG also warned against buying the devices so that they were not launched too long ago. Although Google offers eight years of support, more devices are bought that were launched a few years ago. As a result, the time until the devices can no longer access secure websites can expire much earlier than expected.

In general, the greatly reduced software support by Google as the provider of the ChromeOS operating system used on Chromebooks is a problem, according to the repair specialist iFixit. Technically usable devices are often simply thrown away because software support is no longer available.

While Windows PCs and Macs cost more to buy, these devices are often easier to resell and can be supplied with software for many more years, the report said. Google must therefore extend software support for Chrome OS.

Google justifies the software updates for Chromebooks, which are limited to eight years, with the fact that new updates are made to ChromeOS every month in order to always offer a better experience. At some point, however, the “hardware limits” would be reached, making it difficult to continue providing updates.

In addition, more and more investments are being made in the use of recycled or recyclable materials for the construction of the devices and the reduction of emissions generated during production. The PIRG now wants to ensure that Google and its partners provide resilient and reliable hardware that can be used by the students for as many years as possible.

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