Apple Expands Reuse of Gold, Tungsten, Cobalt, and Other Elements

Apple Inc. announced that it has taken additional steps in using recycled materials to make its products, expanding its reuse of gold, tungsten, cobalt, and other elements. The company said nearly 20 percent of all materials used in its products were recycled last year, the highest level to date.

As part of its regular environmental progress report (PDF) released in advance of Earth Day on April 22, Apple announced that more than half of the aluminum in its products comes from recycled sources, and that "many products" now use 100 percent recycled aluminum for housing. The tech giant also said that 30 percent of the tin in its products is recycled, including all of the tin used to solder the motherboards of the latest iPhones, iPads, AirPods, and Macs.

(Source: CNET)

Apple also said it has expanded its recycling program for the first time to include gold extracted from the logic boards and wires of the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro. Lisa Jackson, the company's vice president of environmental, policy, and social initiatives said in a statement. Lisa Jackson, vice president of environmental, policy, and social initiatives of the company said in a statement, "The company is on track to achieve carbon neutrality across our entire footprint by 2030, which is meaningful and substantial progress in the work we do for the planet."

The tech giant's latest announcement is part of its ongoing effort to reinvent the way it makes its popular products and comes at a time of record demand. The company has emphasized green initiatives for years, including providing environmental report cards for every one of its products, dating back to the release of the iPhone 3G (PDF) in 2008 and the MacBooks (PDF) in 2009.

In addition, Samsung delivered a keynote speech at CES in January promising to use recyclable materials in its TVs and appliances by 2025. Samsung has also joined other technology companies, including Apple, in offering home repair services, including selling parts and tools online.

In recent years, Apple has tried to stand out by announcing green initiatives for its supply chain partners, in addition to its carbon neutrality commitment. The company has also invited the media and competitors to see its various recycling technologies, for reusing tungsten, cobalt, and other elements. This includes public disclosure of its automated robots designed to help disassemble iPhones that can no longer be refurbished, recovering glass, metal, and other elements that would otherwise likely end up in landfills.

(Source: TechCrunch)

The first of these machines, called Liam, was announced in 2016 and was designed to work with the iPhone 6. Daisy, another robot announced in 2018, recycles up to 200 iPhones per hour. the company also has a robot called Dave that dismantles the haptic engine, a technology that can generate alerts and other applications for our devices generate vibrations.

The latest robot announced by the company is Taz, which uses "shredder-like technology" to separate magnets from audio modules and recover gold, tungsten, cobalt, rare earths, and other elements.

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