Apple has revealed how it recovered almost a ton of gold [metric] from recycling products such as iPhones and iPads last year.
The Cupertino-based company saved an estimated £28-million (about R577.1-million) worth of gold, figures in its Environmental Responsibility Report suggest.
Apple also recovered 6612lbs (about 2999kg) of silver, 2953360lbs of copper and 101000lbs of steel through the take-back initiatives.
The tech giant processed an estimated 90 million pounds of unwanted electronics through its recycling programme, which lets customers trade in their old products for money off future Apple devices.
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Apple also introduced its Liam robots, which are “designed to disassemble 1.2 million phones a year, sorting all their high-quality components and reducing the need to mine more resources from the earth”.
“We work hard to keep electronic devices out of landfills so that the precious resources they contain can be reused. And we want to ensure these devices are recycled properly so they don’t pose a threat to human health or the environment,” Apple said in the report.
“That’s why we’ve developed recycling collection events, take-back initiatives and efforts like Apple Renew, a global programme that lets you bring used Apple devices to any Apple store for re-use or responsible recycling.
“Through our efforts, we’ve kept more than 597 million pounds of equipment out of landfills since 1994. In 2015, we collected nearly 90 million pounds of e-waste through our recycling programmes. That’s 71% of the total weight of the products we sold seven years earlier.”
