Tim Cook? Pffft, Apple’s recycling robot Daisy deserves employee of the year
It’s no secret, Tim Cook has been a pretty awesome CEO for Apple. But for us here at Trusted Reviews there’s one employee that completely outshines him: meet Daisy, the recycling robot.
Daisy was unveiled last year and is the latest step in Apple’s ongoing bid to make it quicker and easier for customers to recycle old iPhones. The robot automatically disassembles iPhones that are dropped off at Best Buy stores in the US and KPN in the Netherlands. She also helps take apart iPhones dropped off at Apple’s own stores and those sent in through the Apple Trade-In programme.
Daisy can reportedly disassemble 200 iPhones an hour, which adds up to a staggering 1.2 million units per year. As it stands she can take apart 15 different iPhone models, including the new iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max and iPhone XR, saving valuable materials including battery cobalt, and the tin used in the logic boards of 11 different Apple products – if that’s not worth a bonus we don’t know what is!
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Apple’s metallic eco-warrior will also get better and faster as time goes on as the company rolls out new capabilities. Apple announced plans to deploy Daisy in a new Material Recovery Lab. The 9,000-square-foot lab will be based in Austin, Texas and work to create new ways to recycle precious materials in Apple products using robotics and machine learning.
Apple Vice president of environment, policy and social initiatives, Lisa Jackson said the company expects the initiative to lead to a boom in the number of iPhones being recycled this year.
“Advanced recycling must become an important part of the electronics supply chain, and Apple is pioneering a new path to help push our industry forward,” she said.
“We work hard to design products that our customers can rely on for a long time. When it comes time to recycle them, we hope that the convenience and benefit of our programmes will encourage everyone to bring in their old devices.”
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This’ll be a tricky task though as, according to industry analysts, sales of Apple iPhones are slowing down as people hold off longer before upgrading their devices. The slow-down was listed as a key reason for lower-than-expected earnings by numerous companies, including Apple and Intel last quarter.
You can see a full list of Apple’s eco-efforts in its latest 2019 Environment report.
Excited about Apple’s sustainability efforts? Let us know on Twitter @TrustedReviews
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
