Slashdot Mirror
Apple Unveils Liam, An iPhone Recycling Robot That Salvages Parts (inhabitat.com)
MikeChino writes from an article on Inhabitat: There are around one billion Apple devices in use, and with that comes "significant responsibility," according to Apple CEO Tim Cook. That's why Apple just unveiled Liam, a robot that quickly and efficiently disassembles old iPhones so that their components can be reused for other products (like solar panels).
According to the Inhabitat, "The robot takes apart old iPhones, removing each component and extracting metals like lithium, so that the parts can be reused and your phone 'can live on.'" TechCrunch notes that Liam specifically rescues cobalt and lithium from the battery, gold and copper from the camera, silver and platinum from the logic board and the aluminum enclosure, as well.
According to the Inhabitat, "The robot takes apart old iPhones, removing each component and extracting metals like lithium, so that the parts can be reused and your phone 'can live on.'" TechCrunch notes that Liam specifically rescues cobalt and lithium from the battery, gold and copper from the camera, silver and platinum from the logic board and the aluminum enclosure, as well.
but isn't this an extremely handy way to remove old, but functioning, phones from the second hand market?
Sorry kids, your'e not getting Mum's perfectly good phone, because we're giving it to the bot that will smash it. But we'll buy you an new iPad instead.
Schlock Mercenary.
Is there any machine out there that is the reverse of a PCB pick and place machine, that desolders those miniscule SMD resistors and caps, measures them and puts them all into nice ribbons?
What about a cup-to-bean coffee machine that people can throw their slops of cold, milky coffee in to produce coffee beans at the other end?
To some degree, economizing and efficiency can be better for the environment. The more you can recycle, the less you're dumping. The less waste you have, especially some of the stuff like heavy metals, it's going to be a good thing.
I'm under no illusion that this sort of efficiency will be anything close to a dedicated, large scale program to clean up industry. By itself, this is a drop in the bucket.
However, if all manufacturers started their process with designing in small, but an increasing number of improvements to waste reduction which happen to coincide with with supply chain efficiency, after awhile it will have a real effect on the whole industry by changing the way things are done slowly.
There's two things you have to do in order to have a better environmental future: the big cleanups, and the small, but continuous process refinements that consolidate any gains into the future. No one is going to stop making gadgets like iPhones, so it is important for Apple and others to think this way. We just need to make sure they keep it up.