It is estimated that we dump about 50 million metric Tonnes of e-waste per year, and around 10 percent of it is smartphones and this percentage is increasing by the day. Hence there has been a lot of pressure to either make the smartphones more modular and less likely to end up in a landfill or recycle the used smartphones for a better cause. Choosing the second option, comes Daisy, The Apple Robot.
The Concern:
A modern smartphone lasts for about 4 years if used with care before it starts showing its age, and after that period of time most consumers throw it away. After that, the smartphone either is dumped in an E waste landfill which takes up valuable space and contaminates soil, or it is going to get incinerated (reduced to ashes) which pollutes the air and leads to potential poisoning due to the burning of diverse materials present in a smartphone.
Yet, the form of recycling used by many is not efficient. Because smartphone manufacturer makes about 30 different smartphone models an year, with all sorts of regional variations and specification differences, and each smartphone contains a minimum of 15 different metals, and various other materials. Hence making the process of sorting these materials on a large scale almost impossible.
By traditional recycling procedures, it is only possible sort materials on a primary level, (I.e.), separating metals from non-metals and lighter components from the heavier ones. Hence it is not possible to separate Aluminum from copper, and plastic from fiber etc..., hence the result so obtained is impure and only capable of producing low quality products such as a kid’s toy.
Hence to circumvent this issue Apple entered the recycling saga by creating Daisy – Apple's recycling robot.
Apple’s Daisy
Inside a nondescript warehouse on the outskirts of Austin, Texas, United States, there exists 33 feet long, giant, line of robots with 5 massive hands named Daisy, which is said to be capable of breaking down every iPhone ever made, since 2012. This is apparently capable of sorting out all the 14 minerals present inside every I phone, and can be broken down with nearly 100% purity.
When an iPhone is let inside this robot, there are four distinct sections in this robot, each one deconstructing the device in a more minute scale.
Recognition: In the first section, Daisy uses a camera placed on its roof to take a picture of the back side of the iPhone that has been sent, and it cross references with the internal Database to recognize which iPhone it is going to disassemble, thereby deciding how to treat it.
Apple only launches 4-5 iPhones a year, and there isn't much difference on the inside with each model, hence it helps Daisy to recognize each one quickly.
Also, Daisy checks if the iPhone that you have put in has any imperfections such as a dent or bruise, and it alerts the entire line of robots to adjust itself to deal with the imperfections.
Separation: After the phone has undergone the first step in deconstruction, then the phone gets blew by pressurized air, as cold as –70-degree Celsius to freeze the adhesive sticking the battery onto the phone to then separate it out.
This is important, as recycling Li-ion batteries is way different than recycling other minerals and metals. After that, the phone is sent onto stage 3.
Unscrew: Using the machine’s understanding of the location of the screws, the screws of the remains are punched out, making the phone ready for the next stage.
Excavation: The remaining loose parts of the phone are removed from the body and manually separated by hand with the help of labors, to sort the materials out, such as mother board, ram, etc...
Efficiency:
After all these processes, the iPhone is completely disassembled into its core components which can either be used by apple themselves for their new phones, or given out as pure upmarket materials.
For all these processes to happen you may think that it takes about 10 – 20 minutes for each phone, but, it does all that in 18 seconds or less, (time is varied with different models). Which means one daisy can recycle more than 1.2 million iPhones per year, factoring in that there are 2 “Daisies” around the world, one in Texas and another one in Netherlands, it can recycle 2.5 million iPhones per year.
Also, by taking just a ton of iPhone Apple will get the same amount of gold & Copper as traditionally mining 2000 tons of rock, hence they can use the recycled gold for their new products, possibly the next iPhone. Hence, less mining.
Improvements:
Daisy is not the first robot by Apple, that credit goes to Liam. A robot built in 2013 to recycle iPhone 5’s, which was later improved down the line and taken rebirth in the form of Daisy in 2022.
Daisy is packed with Artificial intelligence, which means it can slowly learn about iPhones as more gets fed into it.
Other Robots by Apple:
Alongside Daisy there are loads of other robots that recycle iPhones. Primarily Daisy handles the sorting stage; sorted components are fed into numerous other robots to disassemble each part more minutely.
Dave: A robot focused on disassembling Taptic Engine of the iPhones (the motors which provide vibrations to the phone).
Taz: A robot focused on reviving rare magnets, such as the small yet really powerful magnets used in cameras and speakers.
These are just two examples, there are many more performing more niche disassembly.
Our part:
Apart from the smartphone manufacturer themselves, we can also help the environment in other ways, by keeping our phones for a longer time, and trading it in to someone or to the manufacturer themselves if you decide to buy a new one. Keeping our phone longer has never been easier, Samsung started giving a total of 4 years of software update to their new Galaxy phones and Apple, as usual, gives 5, to make our phone feel fresh, which means you can still use an iPhone 8 and still have the latest software.
Conclusion:
Thank you for reading my post, hope you have learnt something from this, this is Raghunath Balaji from Tech passion, signing off.
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