Apple To Produce Recycled Cobalt Batteries By 2025: Focusing Carbon Net Zero

Every brand is moving toward decarbonizing manufacturing technology to create products with net zero carbon.

Following this, the world’s renowned company Apple Inc. announced on 13 April to make all of its products carbon neutral by the end of the decade.

According to the company, printed circuit boards will use recycled tin soldering and gold plating. At the same time, magnets in Apple devices will use recycled rare earth elements. It added that as part of its efforts, it will only utilize recycled cobalt in batteries by 2025.

By 2030, Apple hopes to achieve carbon net zero throughout its supply chain and product lifecycle. On 11 April, the company also increased its financial contribution to a fund it had started two years before investing in carbon sequestration projects.

Now the question arises why the company is focusing more on recycling cobalt because it is a significant component of batteries and is used in most consumer electronics.

Therefore, a considerable number of Children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) were forced to mine cobalt, and various tech corporations have previously been accused of being responsible for their deaths.

This rare element is mainly produced as a by-product of copper or from nickel mining, but artisanal miners in southern Congo exploit cobalt-rich deposits close to the surface.

According to Apple, last year, a quarter of the cobalt used in all Apple products came from recycled materials, up from 13% the previous year.

It also sources over three-quarters of aluminum and more than 95% of the tungsten from recycled materials.