On the occasion of Earth Day, Apple has demonstrated its commitment to the environment by showing how its Daisy recycling robot works and sharing data on its progress to become a company that uses 100% recycled materials.
How do you explain Computer HeyDaisy is a robot designed to disassemble old or damaged mobile phones and extract its components, such as aluminum or cobalt, for recycling. You can disassemble up to 23 iPhone models and separate their components, making recycling easy. In addition, it is capable of separating highly demanded materials, such as lithium, for reuse.
Since 2019, Daisy has recovered around 11,000 kilos of cobalt. One metric ton of main plates and chambers it recovers contains the same amount of copper and gold as more than 2,000 metric tons of rock.
The robot can recycle about 200 iPhones per hour, which is equivalent to about 1,200,000 a year. In addition, it has an open license that allows other manufacturers to use it and adapt it to other technological products.
Apple’s goal for 2025
Apple has set itself a goal for the future: use 100% recycled cobalt in all batteries designed by the company by 2025. The magnets of Apple devices will only use recycled rare earths and all printed circuits will use 100% recycled tin for soldering and gold for coating.
90% of the materials Apple uses are limited to just 14 minerals and compounds, including steel, aluminum, cobalt, copper, tin, lithium, gold, paper, plastic, rare earths, tantalum, glass, tungsten, and zinc.
In addition, new Apple products are increasingly friendly to the environment. For example, the Apple Watch Series 8 reduces the device’s climate impact by 26%, and the MacBook Air with M2 reduces it by 38%.
“At Apple, we’ve made our own operations carbon neutral and innovate every day to go even further in our urgent mission to fight climate change.”, explained Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, in a press release.