Apple to use Robots to disassemble Products

Apple, the Cupertino-based tech giant plans to use robots and machine learning (ML) to disassemble its devices and recycle valuable material such as cobalt, aluminium, and copper, Economic Times reported on Friday.

For the development, the company will open a "Material Recovery" lab. Inside the lab, different techniques will be tested by using ML and robotics to carry out the recyclingprocess. The development will take place in Austin, Texas.

The size of the lab is 9,000-square-foot. There is a robot called Daisy in the Austin Facility, and it currently can tear apart iPhones at a rate of 1.2 million per year.

The new lab is a part of the company’s mission to produce recycled renewable products. The date for the new development has not been mentioned by Apple, but some products such as the MacBook Air is being already made from recycled aluminium melted down from iPhones.

People familiar with the matter said Reuters the research will notify how the company designs its products.

In the past, questions were raised about Apple’s thin-and-light product designs sustainability over disassembling products for recycling. 

According to Apple, Daisy robot is turning the recycled materials into new products. For example, if Daisy recovers any battery, then it will be sent to recyclers in order to make cobalt reusable for brand new batteries.

Apple’s new recycling initiative will definitely prevent pollution at some level.