Apple Announces Plans to Accelerate Use of Recycled Materials in New Products

[brucewayne]

There is environmental impact to recycling too - it takes energy and resources to recover the materials and prepare them for reuse. There may be a net gain for the environment, but it is mainly just a way to boost esg scores while maintaining maximum profit.

If Apple really cared about the environment, they wouldn't promote yearly upgrades and would make it so existing products had a longer lifespan with upgradability, easier repairs and not crippling older gear with new software.

 

[laptech]

You have to laugh at the audacity of the article which tries to paint Apple as some kind of recycling champion. They are anything but. Apple is only doing what it is doing because they are being forced to by eco environment laws.

 

[dumastudetto]

This is why I'm proud to be an Apple customer.

 

[RalfTheDog]

There is environmental impact to recycling too - it takes energy and resources to recover the materials and prepare them for reuse. There may be a net gain for the environment, but it is mainly just a way to boost esg scores while maintaining maximum profit.

If Apple really cared about the environment, they wouldn't promote yearly upgrades and would make it so existing products had a longer lifespan with upgradability, easier repairs and not crippling older gear with new software.

It takes energy, but it takes far less energy than digging up and refining the materials. The order of operations is, reduce the amount of stuff that you use. Find a way to reuse what you can. If you can't reuse it, then recycle.

One example. I purchase far more products like iPhones, Apple Watches and laptops than I should. I honestly feel bad about that. When I am done with them, I find someone that needs one and I give it away. If I am replacing a product that no longer works reliably, then I take it in for recycling. When I toss something in the trash because it can't be recycled, I see that as a failure on my part.

 

[rpmurray]

I just wish they'd stop using so much of that eco-unfriendly glue to hold their devices together.

 

[Quicksilver867]

Cool. The cobalt is a big deal.

 

[steve09090]

You have to laugh at the audacity of the article which tries to paint Apple as some kind of recycling champion. They are anything but. Apple is only doing what it is doing because they are being forced to by eco environment laws.

And this rant is based on what? What other companies are leading the way with recycling or with renewable energy? I don’t know of any LAW that forces companies to go 100% on these things. Feel free to expand on your knowledge of environmental laws forcing apple to do this.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

But will it lower the prices?

To Apple, yes. To the consumer, probably not. They'll just fatten their margins.

It's been about a decade since I last saw Apple care about their marketshare. Tim Cook is much more singularly focused on profits, to the detriment of almost everything else at Apple.

I want to point out - being able to use 100% recylced materials is a great marketing spin, but it inherently means other companies have greater marketshare than you and/or you're losing volume.

Apple used to be the single company handling the most battery materials. They've fallen down the ranks quite a bit - Tesla has been the top company for several years now, and Samsung overtook Apple (and is still ahead) before that. So Apple can use 100% recycled materials because they can use the materials from the fraction of their old phones that are recycled (rather than just thrown in a junk drawer or landfill), plus materials from competitor's products.

So this is yet another blaring red alert that Apple is in decline. I found MR's story that Tim Cook sees the VR headset as his last chance to convince investors that Apple isn't a has-been company to be... particularly honest? The Apple Fans in these forums want to convince you that profits are all that matters and not a (majorly) lagging indicator and that Apple is still at the top of their game. But Apple peaked somewhere between 2010 and 2015. They've been in decline for at least 8 years. Apple's volumes have mostly been trending downward, and they've been mostly propping that up by increasing prices to an absurd degree. Never forget - under Jobs, you could get a top end iPhone with everything but a storage upgrade for $200. Now the analogous iPhone is $1100. All Cook has done is jack prices up by over 5x to mask that volume has been cut in half. This trick only lasts so long - it won't be much longer before the curtain is pulled back and Cook will be exposed as an utterly worthless "leader", draining the immense brand value that Jobs created.

 

[Matsamoto]

Kind of wonder what that's all about...

FWIW
DLM

It’s for the environment.

You take the company car loaded with used batteries, and then you go to the beach and put the used battery in the sand.
Dig deep so no one sees them.
If you don’t see them, they don’t exist😁

 

[breather]

All Apple-designed batteries will use 100 percent recycled cobalt.

Do they design all batteries in their product line?

 

[Crowbot]

Do they design all batteries in their product line?

I believe all their batteries are custom-sized to fit the intended space. The chemistry is industry standard.

 

[AtomicDusk]

This is great news, no matter how you slice it.

Unless you're a cynic who says that apple is just created a closed loop of products that you're really doing nothing more than leasing them, which they then recycle at the end of the lease term and you lease a new one when you upgrade.

But I can't imagine that on this forum. 😁

 

[ACHD]

Tim Cook really taking initiative for a cleaner planet because of his values and love of the mankind. Amazing person running an amazing company.

Once set up and running though nearly all of those materials are cheaper to use recycled. Parts like alum are insanely energy intensive to make new. SO its almost always cheaper to do the work in recycling. Same for other materials.

I am not jaded enough to believe this is " All for the planet"

It just so happens to be cheaper once you set up the facilities for it. Brand new processing is expensive as hell for more materials than you realize.

Its going to help increase profits to.

It's feasible for apple because of all the iPhone that get traded in due to age they can design products for just them making recycling even cheaper and faster for them.

The only other larger industry is lead reprocessing from batteries. Cheap as hell to.

 

[mrfunnypenguin]

What Apple is doing is great and all, I hope they continue. But Apple products should still be more repairable.

 

[East India Company]

That’s fantastic! However I’m wondering whether the techniques to recycle the materials are getting better or if apple will simply be a bigger buyer on that market, raising the price for others who are buying the same recycled materials.

 

[bluecoast]

This is fantastic and all kudos to apple.

Sure, they’re doing this to also save money but that’s fine - plenty of manufacturers would still be very happy to use various plastic variations in their products and turn a blind eye as to where their various materials came from, as long as the price was good.

I hope in the end that they can make the iPhone like the fairphone.

Or at least have it so an authorised service provider can upgrade your phone with newer components into the existing chassis.

Increasingly, the new iPhone chassis designs are just a marketing device as nearly everyone slaps their phones into cases, anyway.

So why not just keep the same design for the standard iPhone for 5 years or so at least but allow it to be upgraded?

Perhaps this will be the strategy for the new SE. Here’s hoping.

 

[Mr. Dee]

Part of being sustainable too is keeping your Apple products longer and even using them and extra three years when they no longer receive updates.

 

[DelayedGratificationGene]

OR...he ran the numbers and figured out their profit margin would increase if they used old parts to make new parts. I'm guessing I'm right.

Well hmmm how about his smarts realized it’s both good for environment and improves margins. Kind of a beautiful win win.

 

[brucewayne]

It takes energy, but it takes far less energy than digging up and refining the materials. The order of operations is, reduce the amount of stuff that you use. Find a way to reuse what you can. If you can't reuse it, then recycle.

One example. I purchase far more products like iPhones, Apple Watches and laptops than I should. I honestly feel bad about that. When I am done with them, I find someone that needs one and I give it away. If I am replacing a product that no longer works reliably, then I take it in for recycling. When I toss something in the trash because it can't be recycled, I see that as a failure on my part.

It is hard to find an exact answer to that, mostly these minerals are mined as part of a larger mining operation. But this article here, claiming to be a new cheaper process is labeled as only "competitive"

Take cobalt:

As of 2022 globally we are mining 190,000 tons a year, and projected to be 320,000-460,000 tons by 2030. According to this source by 2030 we 'might' reach 34,000 tons of recycled cobalt a year. So less than 10% of the global commodity of cobalt will be recycled.

Apple (as of a 2019 report) uses several thousand tons of cobalt a year. So when someone says 'Look at Apple, they really care about the environment by only using recycled materials - I wish all companies would do that", the reality is all of those companies can't because the pool of recycled materials isn't as large as the global demand.


So, to restate my point, the only way Apple really makes a difference is to reduce their demand for the raw materials - and the easiest way to do that is to make products upgradable and repairable, as well as by not promoting the lifestyle of yearly conspicuous consumption.

 

[dk001]

So is Apple going to develop and implement this recycle business? It currently doesn't exist in the scale Apple is alluding.

Sounds like the next "Privacy and Security" marketing campaign.

 

[Shirasaki]

This announcement sounds good, but what will happen later? How big of an impact this will be? I get it, Apple says they are doing what sounds good to the planet, but can all of those claims be verified independently? I never see a follow-up analysis of those sorts of “environment protection initiative” mentioned by Apple here.
Yes, I am skeptical. If other parts of what Apple is doing is anything to go by, just because the announcement is good at a glance doesn‘t automatically make Apple a good company.

 

[one more]

Why not both? Decreasing environmental cost is a good thing. Not sending money to fund a war of aggression against a liberal democracy is a good thing.

Then how come Apple are upping their recycling efforts only now? It’s not like the environment was doing just fine over the last 10 years or that Apple needed to wait until now to be able to disassemble their old devices. This is greenwashing, pure and simple.

If they really want to save the environment and precious components they should do what Jobs did - slim down their product line. What’s the point of still selling iPhone 12, for example, when 13 is way better? Stop making iPhone 12, shift the freed up components, decrease iPhone 13 price a bit more and bingo, lots of happy customers & less strain on the environment in one go.

 

[dk001]

This announcement sounds good, but what will happen later? How big of an impact this will be? I get it, Apple says they are doing what sounds good to the planet, but can all of those claims be verified independently? I never see a follow-up analysis of those sorts of “environment protection initiative” mentioned by Apple here.
Yes, I am skeptical. If other parts of what Apple is doing is anything to go by, just because the announcement is good at a glance doesn‘t automatically make Apple a good company.

Color me skeptical but this announcement comes out shortly after the passcode fiasco that questions their commitment to privacy and security. Trying to get back some of the skeptical or users who left?

 

[ackmondual]

But will it lower the prices?

This isn't a money saving move. It's a planet saving move.

As much as I hate to say this, it may actually increase prices! Wouldn't put it past Apple to say "saving the planet costs $$" :\

 

[Crowbot]

As much as I hate to say this, it may actually increase prices! Wouldn't put it past Apple to say "saving the planet costs $$" :\

I think Apple has made it pretty clear that they recycle to save resources. So they design a machine that can disassemble an iPhone in 1 minute. Sourcing materials can be expensive and politically precarious (like buying lithium from China).