Apple Pushes iPhone Recycling with Daisy Robot

Apple is striving to alter the way the electronics are recycles with the help of a robot that dismantles its iPhone so that the minerals could be recovered and reused, while giving acknowledgement to the increasing demand for electronics means new mines would still be needed.

A California based firm, Cupertino said that the robot is part of its plan to become a closed-loop maker that does not depend on the mining industry, an aggressive goal that some of the industry analysts have said that it is not possible.

Many of the mining executives have indicated that the increasing popularity of the electric automobiles, newly mined minerals would be required on an even larger scale, a reality that Apple acknowledges.

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Apple’s head of environment, policy and social, Lisa Jackson said that they are not essentially competing with the people who mine, she added that there is nothing for the miners to be afraid about.

On the outskirts of Austin, Texas, inside a nondescriptibe warehouse, the Daisy robot of Apple breaks apart the iPhones so that fourteen minerals, which includes the lithium could be recycled and extracted.

Apple is already making use of the recycled cobalt, tin and the rare earths in some of its products, with considerations of adding to that list. Last month Apple bough the first commercial batch of the carbon-free aluminum from a joint venture between Alcoa and Rio Tinto.

Daisy is less than 20 yards in length and uses a 4-step process for the removal of the iPhone battery with a blast of 80 celsius and then pop out the screws and modules, which includes the haptic module that makes a phone to vibrate.

The parts are then sent off for recycling for the minerals to the extracted and refined. Daisy can as per an estimate tear apart 200 iPhones in an hour. As per Jackson, Apple has choosed iPhone to be the first of its products that Daisy would dismantle owing to its excessive popularity.

Apple is thinking to share the Daisy technology with others, which includes the electric auto manufacturers. Daisy do have some angles which are skeptical, like some tech world think that the firm should focus more on the making of products that could be repaired not just recycled.

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