The iPhone manufacturer is increasingly relying on recycled raw materials.
(Photo: dpa)
cupertino In two years, Apple wants to use raw materials such as cobalt or tin, some of which are obtained from conflict regions, only from recycling in many cases. By 2025, 100 percent recovered cobalt will be used in the batteries developed by the iPhone group.
The magnets in the devices will then also consist entirely of rare earths from recycling, as Apple announced on Thursday. In addition, circuit boards developed by Apple should only be soldered from recycled tin and coated with recycled gold, it said.
The announcement is a big step towards the goal announced a few years ago of only using recycled material in the production of new devices at some point. Apple is already using recycled aluminum on a large scale.
When it comes to raw materials such as gold, tin or cobalt, the entire electronics industry is often criticized because the metals are often mined under risky and inhumane conditions. Apple had used supply chain controls for the past few years to monitor the origin of materials.
At the same time, the use of these raw materials from recycling was expanded. According to Apple, a quarter of the cobalt in Apple products came from recycled material last year, after 13 percent in 2021. In the case of rare earths, the recycling share increased from 45 percent to 73 percent within a year. For the metal tin, it was 38 percent last year.
Apple has robots that take apart old iPhones for recycling. According to earlier information from the group, almost 100 percent of the cobalt from the batteries can be reused for the production of new batteries. Apple also set itself the goal of completely eliminating plastic from its packaging by 2025.
More: How Apple wants to get important raw materials like gold and copper from old iPhones
