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Apple’s recycling program recovered 89 million pounds of materials – including $40M worth of gold

Apple’s ninth annual Environmental Responsibility Report summarises the company’s work on its three environmental priorities of renewable energy, safer materials & processes and conserving resources. As part of the third of those, the company revealed that its recycling program last year recovered 89 million pounds of materials – Business Insider noting that this included a cool $40M worth of gold.

Gold is commonly used in circuit boards because it has low electrical resistance and, unlike copper, doesn’t corrode. In most applications, a thin layer of gold covers a thicker layer of copper – which was a second valuable material recovered by Apple …

Almost three million pounds of copper was recycled – worth over $6M – along with silver, nickel, aluminum, steel, lead, zinc, tin, cobalt, glass and plastics.

The iPhone recycling robot Apple showed off last month was one of the tools used by the company to recover materials. Fairphone estimates that the average smartphone contains around 30mg of gold.

Apple is also preparing for Earth Day with a campaign raising money for the World Wide Fund for Nature, alongside iPad-based Earth Day lessons for students.

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Comments

  1. Doug Aalseth - 8 years ago

    Don’t have the actual figures but it seems likely the recovered gold will pay for the rest of the program.

    • therazorpit - 8 years ago

      Shh, don’t say that too loudly. I’m sure the progressive’s in D.C. will figure out a way to tax the heck out of it.

    • Seika - 8 years ago

      They’re not used to coat the next batch of circuit boards ?

      In the other hand, mankind sure digs out a lot of gold out of the ground. After all that $40 million is surely just a drop in the sea isn’t it compared to all the golds in use isn’t it ?

  2. betamaxbanditiii - 8 years ago

    What about the indium-tin-oxide? Maybe that’s in the glass numbers? There’s not much indium around and there isn’t currently a good alternative for making conductive glass, I believe.

  3. rnc - 8 years ago

    And people think Apple is dumb for making a smartwatch made of gold…

    • chrisl84 - 8 years ago

      Unless they are selling, then yes they are….simply having gold to produce them doesn’t make you smart, they would likely do better holding the 40M in gold for 10 years and selling it at its future value than putting it into handful of Editions that are likely being sold.

  4. Lawrence Krupp - 8 years ago

    Yet with all the environmentally conscious actions Apple takes they still are able to make tons of profit. This just proves it can be done and there’s no excuse for other companies not to follow Apple’s lead. No excuses!

    • Paul Van Obberghen - 8 years ago

      It’s what I call the Virtual Circle, the only way to solve the ecology problem of consuming non renewable fossile fuels and exhausting Earth resources. Apple demonstrates that being nature conscious and active is not only moraly desirable (which, let’s be honest, is the least of preoccupations for corporations) but also is good business (which, let’s be honest, is the major preocupation for corporations). Sure you need tons of money to begin with, but that’s not the problem for major corporations which usual have aplenty.

    • chrisl84 - 8 years ago

      How do you know they are making “tons” of profit? Apple pays out for each of these phones they recycle. They arent donated to them. Apple offers me $250 for my iPhone 6 right now, I doubt there is much more value to the components after that is paid out.

      • Lawrence Krupp - 8 years ago

        If you are referring to profit made from recycling by itself that’s obviously not what I meant. That’s an ignorant take. And I do indeed KNOW that Apple is making tons of profit even with the expense of being environmentally conscious and proactive. I’m a stock holder and I get that dividend check every quarter.

  5. standardpull - 8 years ago

    Apple’s approach is a huge advancement. If you can better control the “input” materials, waste that goes up the stack or into the landfill is greatly minimized. And that’s particularly true if you have the mind to recover less valuable materials, like glass and plastic. And if your source material is missing toxics like Bromine and Mercury.

    I once, long ago and very briefly, worked in a place where they reclaimed metals from old computers (like your old desktop IBM PC). I think this entire industry has moved to the the parts of the world without health, safety, or environmental concepts … but in the late 1980s it was here in the good old USA.

    The entire computer would be broken down as much as reasonable with saws and hammers, and then we’d chuck the parts with potentially valuable metals into in a furnace where it would be heated a few 1000°.

    The valuable metals were drawn out, with mostly silver/gold/platinum being recovered. A Brinks truck would pull up every few days and take those metals away. Everything else was either vaporized and pushed out of a vent on the roof, or was disposed of in a landfill or somewhere else (who knows, the business practices there were incredibly shady).

  6. chrisl84 - 8 years ago

    How much did Apple pay out in the recycling process? Doesn’t each phone include an expense on Apples part?

  7. If I understand this right: only iPhone 6 models were recycled by LIAM. With 2200 pounds of gold recovered and with 30 mg of gold per iPhone, this means that over 33 millions iphones were recycled! This means of 150 millions sold iphones 1/5 is being recycled?

  8. Dan (@danmdan) - 8 years ago

    But how much “energy” was expended in the recovery process. Beware of using more than the recovery process saves !

    • flaviosuave - 8 years ago

      This is why Apple is pushing to have their operations be renewable/solar-powered to the extent possible, with a goal of 100% at some point in the relatively near future.

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Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Ben Lovejoy

Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor for 9to5Mac. He’s known for his op-eds and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review. He also writes fiction, with two technothriller novels, a couple of SF shorts and a rom-com!


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