According to the latest reports, the tech giant Apple took advantage of the concurrence of Earth Day (April 22) to present its new robot which is capable of destroying up to 200 iPhones per hour for sorting and recycling all its essential components.
The tech giant Apple took advantage of the concurrence of Earth Day (April 22) to present the Daisy project, a robot capable of disassembling up to 200 iPhones per hour for sorting and recycling all its essential components.
This is not the first time the company has come up with an idea. In 2016, somewhat reacting to criticisms about the difficulties of accessing the iPhone’s internal components for recycling purposes, the company introduced Liam. With its 29 arms, the robot was able to separate the components of an iPhone 6 in just 11 seconds.
It was because, apparently, Liam was discontinued. In the official statement, the tech giant Apple claims that its engineers took advantage of technologies and parts of the robot to develop the new project.
When Liam got tested, the tech giant Apple set the goal of dismantling 350 iPhones per hour. As we already know, the Daisy robot does 200. But that does not mean that the machine is less “smart”: it was designed to disassemble nine versions of the iPhone (the iPhone X is an exception) and separate components more efficiently, mainly those traditional means of recycling cannot or will not recover.
This type of work is important not only for being environmentally friendly but also for enabling Apple to reduce costs by producing certain components. Cobalt, for example, is essential in the manufacture of lithium-ion batteries, but the growing demand for electric cars has made metal prices nearly quadruple since 2015.
But for the idea to work, the tech giant Apple needs to tackle another challenge: getting iPhones for recycling. One of the initiatives the company maintains for this is the GiveBack program, which provides gift cards in exchange for outdated handsets.
The tech giant Apple took advantage of the concurrence of Earth Day (April 22) to present the Daisy project, a robot capable of disassembling up to 200 iPhones per hour for sorting and recycling all its essential components.
This is not the first time the company has come up with an idea. In 2016, somewhat reacting to criticisms about the difficulties of accessing the iPhone’s internal components for recycling purposes, the company introduced Liam. With its 29 arms, the robot was able to separate the components of an iPhone 6 in just 11 seconds.
It was because, apparently, Liam was discontinued. In the official statement, the tech giant Apple claims that its engineers took advantage of technologies and parts of the robot to develop the new project.
When Liam got tested, the tech giant Apple set the goal of dismantling 350 iPhones per hour. As we already know, the Daisy robot does 200. But that does not mean that the machine is less “smart”: it was designed to disassemble nine versions of the iPhone (the iPhone X is an exception) and separate components more efficiently, mainly those traditional means of recycling cannot or will not recover.
This type of work is important not only for being environmentally friendly but also for enabling Apple to reduce costs by producing certain components. Cobalt, for example, is essential in the manufacture of lithium-ion batteries, but the growing demand for electric cars has made metal prices nearly quadruple since 2015.
But for the idea to work, the tech giant Apple needs to tackle another challenge: getting iPhones for recycling. One of the initiatives the company maintains for this is the GiveBack program, which provides gift cards in exchange for outdated handsets.
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