Lithium-ion batteries power most of our electronics, but mining the metals that make up those batteries can cause a lot of pollution, as well as harmful conditions for workers.
As a result, more and more groups are working to ensure battery recycling, and some of these efforts are bearing fruit.
A few days ago, Apple advertisement that its batteries will use 100% recycled cobalt from 2025.
Obviously, there are a wide variety of materials used in phones and computers, and Apple’s recycling announcement isn’t just about cobalt. The company has also said that by 2025 plans to use recycled rare earth elements in its magnetsas well as recycled materials for soldering and gold-plating its circuit boards.
However, the Apple news headline makes reference to cobalt, as it is a key ingredient in lithium-ion batteries. Today, it is mined primarily in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the activity has been linked to human rights abuses such as forced labor.
The Daisy robot helps recover rare earth elements, which are largely lost in traditional electronics recycling processes.
By 2022, Apple was already using 25% recycled cobalt in its batteries, up from 13% the year before. And as stated in the new release, in a few years, all cobalt in “Apple Designed Batteries” will come from recycled sources.
The iPhone 14 line is designed with 100% recycled rare earth elements for all magnets, 100% recycled tungsten in the Taptic Engine, 100% recycled tin in the solder of multiple printed circuit boards, and 100% recycled gold in the plating of multiple printed circuit boards.
So the iPhone of 2025 (which, unless things change, will be the iPhone 17) could be made with cobalt from recycled sources.
