14 DAY TRIAL // If you ever watched an Apple press event, you certainly know that the first 10 minutes or so are used by the company to brag about its eco-friendly business, with various executives or CEO Tim Cook himself emphasizing how much they love the environment and do anything to reduce pollution.
As part of this push to become the most environmentally-friendly company, Apple now plans to make iPhones, iPads, and MacBooks from recycled materials and a bunch of new materials like bioplastics, which should help substantially cut pollution and improve recycling.
In an interview with Australian outlet News, Apple’s vice president of environment, policy and social initiatives Lisa Jackson explained that what the company aims to do is use recycled materials on its flagship products and “stop mining the Earth altogether.”
Maintaining a high build quality quite a challenge
“What we’ve committed to is 100 percent recycled material to make our products, or renewable material,” she said. “We’re working like gangbusters on that. As far as I know, we’re the only company in the sector trying to figure that out. Most people talk about recycling electronics, but the material is not necessarily used in new electronics.”
While this is clearly an ambitious goal, we’re still far away from the moment Apple manages to create a product with the same build quality as the existing iPhones, all by using recycled materials only.
The iPhone X, for example, comes with the most durable glass ever on a phone, and it’ll be a challenge for the company to achieve the same strength and stick to its eco-friendly strategy at the same time.
Apple announced earlier this year that it suspended the use of cobalt sourced from the Democratic Republic of Congo as a response to claims of child labor, difficult working conditions, and low payments as part of an industry that’s responsible for the lithium-ion batteries used in the majority of devices these days.