Rare Earth Minerals
Apple Inc. has long stated that they are making progress towards their goal of transitioning to 100% recycled and renewable materials in their products. Since their 2021 fiscal year, they have double their recycled rare earth metals in their devices. As stated before, their goal is to one day make every Apple product with 100% recycled or renewable materials. To achieve that, they need to design devices to use more recycled content and make sure these materials get recovered when products reach end-of-life.
When recycling of renewables takes place it lowers reliance on mining, shipping, and processing of raw materials, thereby reducing their carbon footprint and conserving precious natural resources. Every Apple product contains materials that can be used to build new ones. And research from Apple’s Material Recovery Lab in Texas helps to reclaim more of those building blocks with innovative tools and technologies. Apple’s trio of robots nicknamed Daisy, Dave and Taz are used to dismantle iPhone devices and recover crucial materials such as gold, cobalt, tungsten, and rare earth elements.
These collected materials make it back to the raw materials marketplace so them and others, can be used as recycled materials for the next generation of products, improving the ways metals are sourced and recycled. Precious materials are one of the many ways we to reduce the carbon impact of our products and preserve our planet’s natural resources.