As of this year Apple stores, offices, and data centers in 48 are all powered by renewable energy. The smartphone juggernaut has made it a top priority to go green and ahead of Earth Day it has unveiled a new iPhone-disassembling robot it has named Daisy.
The machine is able to take apart nine different models of Apple’s smartphone to turn them back into the materials necessary to turn them into even more devices. Apple says that Daisy is a stride towards a company goal of making products completely out of recycled or renewable materials, it said in a statement. This would be monumental, seeing as we threw away nine great pyramids’ worth of electronics in 2016 alone.
This recycling robot can break down 200 iPhone an hour making it more effective than other methods of recycling, which involve manually refurbishing devices to be resold. Apple’s new recycling bot also makes sure it doesn’t accidentally damage any reusable components from the phones it takes apart to ensure it gets the most out of the devices it is given.
Daisy is the successor of Apple’s first disassembly robot, Liam. The company took what it learned from this previous machine, and even some of its parts, to create Daisy. That would make it a recycled-recycling robot.
Alongside Daisy’s announcement, Apple’s temporary GiveBack program is encouraging people with old iPhones stashed away in their drawers to drop their old devices off at an Apple Store or mail them in. From April 19 to April 30, the tech company will make a donation to the non-profit Conservation International for every device received. Customers can also receive in-store credit for certain devices they trade-in.
CEO Tim Cook once said that he wants to, “keep pushing the boundaries of what is possible with the materials in our products [and] the way we recycle them.” Daisy certainly isn’t the solution to electronic waste, but the more tech companies that make it a point to inform and incentivize recycling the easier it will be to tackle the issue moving forward.
