Apple announced in a Thursday press release that the company aims to use exclusively recycled battery materials by 2025.
Key Details
- Apple has been progressively increasing its use of recycled cobalt, aluminum, tin, lithium, gold, tungsten, and rare earth metals in the batteries, circuit boards, and magnets used in its phones and devices.
- The company shipped 72 million phones in the fourth quarter of 2022, meaning the company will need to access large quantities of recycled raw materials to meet its annual production need for hundreds of millions of new phones and products.
- Swapping entirely to recycled materials will help the company reach its goal of reducing mining for access to raw materials and curbing its carbon footprint by 2030.
Why It’s News
The global target to react net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 has left major corporations in a pinch to rush and meet the demand, evolving their production processes, sourcing new materials, and even completely retooling the types of products they will sell in the coming decades. U.S. automakers have committed to attempting to completely replace gas-powered vehicles with electric vehicles by 2035—in 12 years.
Apple’s push for recycled materials is ambitious—giving itself just two years to swap its raw materials sources completely. Thus far, it has succeeded. Apple increased its use of recycled Cobalt from 13% to 25% last year while increasing its recycled rare earth materials from 45% to 73%.
The company has additionally promised to reduce its reliance on plastic packaging materials—an effort the company claims has already reduced plastics to 4% of current shipping materials while reducing 1,100 metric tons of plastic and 2,400 metric tons of carbon dioxide.
Notable Quote
“Every day, Apple is innovating to make technology that enriches people’s lives while protecting the planet we all share. From the recycled materials in our products to the clean energy that powers our operations, our environmental work is integral to everything we make and to who we are. So we’ll keep pressing forward in the belief that great technology should be great for our users and for the environment,” says Apple CEO Tim Cook.
