What does one do with defunct iPhones? A normal person would just keep it in the drawer as a remembrance. But Apple has another thing in mind.
There are valuable parts in iPhones that can be recovered and reused. Upon realizing this, Apple developed a robot whose job is to dissect the mobile phones and take those reusable materials.
Called Liam, it was introduced to the public in the spring of 2016. The promise is to disassemble one iPhone 6 every seconds.
Now there are Liam “production line” systems currently operating in California and the Netherlands according to a recent report by Apple.
And the rate of disassembly is astounding. In a year, Liam can take apart 1.2 million iPhone 6 units. The maximum 2.4 million phones the two systems can take apart per year are a fraction of the 211 million iPhones Apple sold in 2016.
The materials that can be recovered and reused are also specified in the report. They are the ones saved from shredding, which is the usual process of destroying electronics.
“For every 10,000 phones that Liam disassembles, we have the potential to recover 190 kg of aluminum, 80 kg of copper, 0.13 kg of gold, 0.04 kg of platinum group metals, 0.70 kg of silver, 5.5 kg of tin, and 2.4 kg of rare earth elements,” Apple wrote.
The report comes as part of an annual information drive of Apple because of “green bonds” worth $1.5 billion that Apple issued in 2016. In the green bonds, investors will find it much easier to identify environmentally friendly projects.
Source: Business Insider
