Enhancements to iPhone Recycling Scheme Announced by Apple
Wednesday, April 24, 2019 - 13:20:22
Apple is planning to dramatically increase the proportion of old iPhones that are recycled at its own facilities, making the millions of devices it sells far more sustainable in the long term and also giving customers an incentive to upgrade without turning to one of its manufacturing rivals.
The Environment Journal reports that the Californian tech giant is partnering with a number of retailers around the world in order to facilitate iPhone recycling drop-off services in locations other than its own bricks-and-mortar stores.
The phones which are collected via this initiative will be processed by the machine which Apple unveiled a couple of years ago. Known as Daisy, this system is able to completely disassemble old iPhones in less than a minute and allows for the precious materials that they contain to be reclaimed for use in the production of new devices.
In particular, the recovery of cobalt from used iPhones is seen as a positive step, since this mineral is subsequently used to build batteries that provide power storage capabilities on board the latest generation of Apple handsets.
Each year Daisy is capable of processing over a million devices, although to date it has only managed to get through this number in total, partly as a result of the fact that customers have not been able to recycle their old phones through this official scheme in that many places.
Of course, if an iPhone is still functional, it makes sense to sell it so that it can be used by someone else rather than sending it directly for recycling. Refurbished Apple devices are still worth a lot of money, and it is more sustainable to adopt this approach, which is something that consumers should keep in mind if they own an iPhone.
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