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Apple announces new recycling program as interest in green gadgets grows
March 21, 2016
Apple announces new recycling program as interest in green gadgets grows
Alison Moodie
Monday 21 March 2016 18.12 GMT
For gadget geeks, today was a lot like Christmas. This morning, Apple announced its next generation of products – including new, smaller iterations of the iPhone and iPad. Apple CEO Tim Cook also reiterated a recent milestone: there are now one billion Apple products in active use around the world.
But, if the estimated 231.5m iPhones sold in 2015 are any indication, this will also mark the beginning of a fresh deluge of Apple products into landfills across the country. More than 700m iPhones have sold since they debuted in 2007. And, while some of those phones have been reprocessed and resold, the majority still end up in the municipal waste stream, where they are likely to contribute to air, water and soil pollution.
To counter this, Apple announced a new research and development program aimed at improving its recycling initiatives. Known as Apple Renew, the program will encourage users to recycle their devices by sending them to Apple for free, or dropping them off at an Apple retail store. Once at Apple, the devices will be deconstructed by a robot called Liam (or an entire assembly line of them, presumably) so Apple can recover and reintroduce the components into its supply.
Read more at The Guardian.
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