Attaching great importance to recycling and using materials suitable for recycling in its products in recent years, Apple Incorporated recycled certified gold into its production process for the first time and has more than doubled the use of recycled tungsten, rare earths and cobalt.
About 20 percent of all materials used in Apple products in 2021 were recycled. This rate represents the highest rate of using recycled content to date.
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Apple uses a special robot for iPhones!
To help Apple recycling partners build on this momentum around the world, Taz, its newest innovationintroduced the . Taz is a machine that leverages a groundbreaking approach to improve material recovery from traditional electronics recycling.
In 2021, 59 percent of all aluminum used by Apple in its products came from recycled sources. 100 percent recycled aluminum was used in the chassis of many products. Apple also made significant progress towards the company’s goal of eliminating plastic in packaging by 2025, by using plastic in only 4 percent of product packaging in 2021.
Recycled certified gold is used in iPhone 13s!
Since 2015, Apple has reduced the use of plastic in its packaging by 75 percent. In addition, in 2021 Apple products included the following:
- Certified rare earth elements that are 45 percent recycled: This rate represents a significant increase since Apple began using recycled rare earth elements in its devices.
- 30 percent recycled certified tin: The new iPhone, iPad, AirPods and Mac devices use 100 percent recycled tin to solder on their motherboards.
- 13 percent recycled certified cobalt: 13 percent of certified recycled cobalt used in iPhone batteries is broken down into components by Apple’s recycling robot Daisy and brought back to the market.
- Recycled certified gold: For the first time in any Apple product, this material was used in both the motherboard coatings and the wires of the front and rear cameras in the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro models.
From just one ton of iPhone components shredded by Apple’s recycling robots, recyclers can recover as much gold and copper as companies would normally extract from the 2,000 tons of mined rock.
Apple is also committed to extending the lifespan of its products through renewal. In 2021, Apple shipped 12.2 million devices and accessories to new owners for reuse, extending the lifespan of these products and reducing the need for future mining operations.
The Taz, a machine that uses a new technology similar to that in disintegrators to separate magnets from sound modules and reclaim more rare earth elements, is the latest in a series of advances Apple has pioneered in recycling.
The company also patented iPhone disassembly robot Daisy‘s features to disassemble 23 iPhone models, giving other companies and researchers the ability to license these patents free of charge.
Dave, another robot that breaks down Taptic Engines into components, enables the recovery of valuable materials such as magnets containing rare earth elements, tungsten and steel.