One day your new iPhone will be all recycled from your old one

In an industrial park in Austin, there is a building without any signs, in which a group of researchers study a black technology.In the transparent large glass shell, the automatic mechanical arm can move up and down the conveyor belt quickly and accurately. Several technicians in blue lab suits, goggles and gloves watched one arm roll in the fog.

he fog is caused by the extreme cold in the room, and the indoor temperature can drop to - 112 ℃. The loud mechanical impact broke the low buzzing sound when the machine was running, and made a uniform impact sound.

The complex system, called Daisy, combines automation and user-friendly operations to separate pieces of pure plastic, metal and glass from the unusable iPhone. It is this robotic system that has brought Apple coveted results.

When Daisy robot debuted last year, it was able to dismantle 15 different iPhone models (starting with the iPhone 5) at the rate of 200 per hour. Since April of this year, 9 million iPhones have been collected through Apple's trade in program, and the Austin lab machine, combined with another machine in the Netherlands, is processing about 1 million of them (most of which are in the refurbishment and resale process).

Traditional e-waste recycling facilities are not as sophisticated as Daisy's, and most factories rely on cumbersome machines to crush products and then pour them into containers of mixed particles. As a result, these mixed streams are more difficult to recycle, and a large number of elements are discarded in the process.

Lisa, vice president, environment, policy and social initiatives, apple A kind of "We spent a lot of time on this project to make the equipment recyclable, and Daisy made sure we had an effective way to dismantle the product system," Jackson said Daisy not only represents a breakthrough in electronic recycling - robots that tear apart electronic devices one by one - but also represents the vision of minimizing environmental impact.

Apple has always been proud of its green credentials. For example, a large part of its supply chain is driven by renewable energy. Now it's turning its attention to an equally intractable problem: the rapidly growing and often toxic waste of electronic equipment.

How to manage e-waste is becoming an increasingly complex problem. According to the data of the global e-waste monitor, in 2016, 44 million tons of e-waste were generated globally, equivalent to the height of 4500 Eiffel towers. Carly, associate professor, Sustainable Development Institute, golisano, Rochester Institute of Technology A kind of "As companies launch more fashionable and smaller products, the total amount of e-waste is actually decreasing," says Callie Babbitt. But a new problem is emerging. The products we use now rely on more and more complex rare earth materials and precious metal mixtures. As companies launch new products more and more quickly, automation systems may be difficult to keep up with market demand. "

Apple refused to estimate the amount of its products converted into e-waste. Last year, the company sold 217.7 million iPhones, with an average of about 0.15 kg each. This means that Apple has invested more than 30000 tons of electronic materials into global households through mobile phones alone. If consumers have a better choice, some of them will be discarded and become harmful waste polluting the earth.

In 2017, Apple announced a crazy sounding goal: to achieve the ultimate goal of all products using recyclable or renewable materials, and only using such materials.

It didn't say when the goal would be achieved. But the material recovery lab, which opened in April, is part of an ongoing effort to turn experiments into reality.

It lists the materials used in 14 products and hopes to eventually recycle them completely.

For example, plastic, which takes hundreds of years to decompose, will release harmful toxins when it corrodes, posing a threat to plants, animals and ecology. There is also lithium. Rechargeable batteries contain lithium. Exploitation of lithium will cause serious damage to the environment. With Daisy's help, Apple has recycled these 14 materials. At present, tin and aluminum in new products such as MacBook Air have been recycled completely.

Apple not only wants to improve its own production processes, but also wants to improve the way materials are recycled throughout the industry. Part of its Austin plant is dedicated to extensive e-waste recycling research and development, hoping to innovate equipment for recycling more materials and improve the supply chain of consumer technology.

To achieve this goal, it is a long way for apple, which requires the joint efforts of many industry people. Even some of Apple's executives don't believe this is feasible, but with the efforts of engineers and team members, they find that comprehensive recycling is not only possible, but also crucial.

"If we don't want the ultimate fate of Apple products to be earth garbage, we can only spend time and money to invest in ensuring long-term use of hardware and reuse of materials to change the insurmountable problems."