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General Market Commentary
Apple taps recycled rare earth elements for iPhone parts
Apple said it will used recycled rare earths in its “Taptic Engine,” a part that lets iPhones mimic a physical button click despite being a flat pane of glass. The part is about one-quarter of the rare earth elements inside the iPhone models.
Rare earths, a group of 17 specialized minerals, have become a flash point in trade tensions between the United States and China. The elements are used in weapons, consumer electronics and other goods.
China dominates the processing of the raw minerals, and has implied through its state-controlled media that it could restrict rare earths sales to the United States, just as it did to Japan after a diplomatic dispute in 2010.
Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of environment, policy and social initiatives, said Apple’s use of recycled rare earths was “not related” to trade tensions but could help it maintain a steady supply.
“This is one of those happy coincidences where what is good for the planet is really good for business at the same time,” Jackson told Reuters. “One of the things we talk about a lot internally, just in general, is how much more resilient this makes our supply chain.”
In consumer electronics, rare earths reside in tiny speakers and actuators. The parts are so small that collecting them for recycling is difficult and expensive.
For now, Apple will use recycled rare earths from an outside supplier, not from previously used iPhones. Apple declined to name the supplier or say what products the rare earths were recovered from.
But Jackson said that Apple’s scale - new iPhone models are typically sell tens of millions of units per year - helped make the project economically viable.
“We have essentially made a market for this entrepreneur, this innovator, who found a way to recycle rare earths,” Jackson said.
Apple often aims to reuse parts from its old devices.
Apple said on Wednesday that aluminum from enclosures recovered through its trade-in programs will be melted down and made into new MacBook Air laptop computers. The company previously disclosed that cobalt recovered from iPhone batteries disassembled by robots at its recycling labs in Texas is put into new iPhone batteries.