Apple has detailed its increased efforts to use recycled materials. 100 per cent recycled tin from old logic boards is now used in 11 different Apple products. 

Cobalt from old iPhone batteries is also now being recovered to help make new Apple batteries. As you might know, Apple announced at launch that the aluminium alloy used for the latest MacBook Air and Mac mini is now 100 per cent recycled and Apple says it is now able to use aluminium from its trade-in programme to contribute towards this. 

Apple's Daisy iPhone recycling robot is undoubtedly a big success - it's able to disassemble and recycle 1.2 million iPhones a year.

It can now do this with 15 different iPhone models - even better than when the robot was first announced in early 2018. At that time Daily could recycle 9 iPhone models. Daisy is the follow-up to Apple's previous recycling robot Liam which could process 12 iPhones per minute. 

Apple says it is now using 100 percent recycled tin also using recovered battery materials image 2
Apple

Daisy disassembles products rather than breaking them as with traditional recycling techniques. This means that more products can be recovered as they are less likely to be jumbled up with other waste.

The robot first separates the screen and body before removing the battery and taking out the board, cameras and so on.

Apple has also today announced a new Material Recovery Lab in Austin, Texas where it says it will work on innovations focused on improved recycling of products.

In 2018, Apple says it also refurbished more than 7.8 million devices, avoiding around 48,000 metric tons of electronic waste.