Apple Says It’s Using More Recycled Materials Than Ever Before

In the latest report by the popular tech giant Apple, the company shares new details on the increased use of recycled content across its product lineup. Apple also shared some new features it’s offering customers ahead of 2022 Earth Day taking place on April 22nd. In 2021, Apple recorded its products containing almost 20 per cent recycled materials. Recent reports say to date, this is the highest percentage the company has achieved.

New details on Apple’s progress, its recycling innovation efforts, and clean energy are detailed in its 2022 Environmental Progress Report which has been released to the public. For the first time in any Apple device, the iPhone 13 and iPhone13 Pro contain recycled gold that was used in the plating of the device’s main logic board, as well as in wire in the device’s front camera and rear cameras. Apple claims this “milestone,” was attributed to the company’s “pioneer[ing] industry-leading levels of traceability to build a gold supply chain of exclusively recycled content.”

This accomplishment is said to have built on efforts to retrieve gold from previously discarded products and materials. According to Apple when recycling robots take apart one metric ton of iPhone components usually the recovery product is gold and copper. The amount recovered is enough for use to avoid mining 2,000 metric tons of rock. Apple further discloses that a ton of cellphones can contain as much as 80 times more gold than a ton of material recovered from a gold mine.

Apple also introduces customers to a new recycling machine named Taz. The company reveals that Taz has the ability to use “shredder-like technology to separate magnets from audio modules and recover more rare earth elements.” Apple in its announcement today says Daisy, a recycling robot that was introduced as far back as 2018 which can disassemble phone batteries and prepare them for resale, after a makeover can now take apart 23 iPhone models. Apple has also offered to license Daisy-related patents to other companies and researchers free of charge. Apple also notes that it has another robot, Dave, that disassembles Taptic Engines to help to recover rare earth magnets, tungsten and steel. With their help, Apple has more than doubled the use of recycled tungsten, rare earth elements and cobalt, the company said.  

According to the 2022 Environmental Progress Report released, Apple identified that it was not able to make quite as much progress on plans to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions. However, the company made a pledge in 2020 to reduce the planet-heating emissions by 75 per cent this decade. But in 2021, its gross emissions rose slightly. The company aims to end the use of plastics in packaging by 2025. 

Apple’s vice president of Environment, Policy, and Social Initiatives, Lisa Jackson said in a statement “As people around the world join in celebrating Earth Day, we are making real progress in our work to address the climate crisis and to one day make our products without taking anything from the earth.” Jackson further said that “Our rapid pace of innovation is already helping our teams use today’s products to build tomorrow’s, and as our global supply chain transitions to clean power, we are charting a path for other companies to follow.”

Through the introduction of the various projects, the company made effort to cancel out the pollution rise, offsetting or removing CO2 from the atmosphere. The effort has kept its net emissions flat last year at 22.5 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent. Most of the company’s climate pollution has been identified to come from supply chains for securing materials and making its products. Apple has therefore pushed hundreds of its suppliers into making sure its products stick with using clean energy.

On April 22, Apple plans to unveil its new immersive augmented reality experience on Snapchat, consumers can find out more about Apple’s environmental initiatives, on Earth Day. Apple also announces that for each purchase through Apple Pay on apple.com, in the Apple Store app, or at an Apple Store a dollar will be donated to the environmental nonprofit World Wildlife Fund (WWF) from now until April 22nd. This initiative is said to only apply to selected countries, including the U.S., U.K. and Canada.