Apple announces new lab to expands global recycling programs

Tech giant Apple is always notorious for keeping secrets about what happening in its laboratories. But it seems that the company has decided to share some details about what happening in the latest lab situated in Austin, Texas.

On thursday, the company said that it will opena a "Material Recovery" lab. This lab will particularly work with new techniques and robotics to rip the valuable material from old iPhones such as copper, aluminium and cobalt. The lab will be situated at 9,000-square-foot in Austin.

With this Apple is aiming at a broder goal to make use of all its roducts by recycling them. However, the company has not set any specific date or a time frame to achieve this goal.

"I absolutely think that the learnings we make there will be for all of Apple, and hopefully for all of our sector, and of course will influence designers and engineers as we go forward," Lisa Jackson, Apple's vice-president of environment, policy and social Initiatives told Reuters in an interview.

Earlier the company was criticized for its thin-and-light product designs which were very difficult to disassemble which was ultimately making it non-recyclable. But now the company has come up with a solution which will be an answer to all the criticism.

"Cobalt is mined in horrific conditions," Wiens of iFixit said. "Reducing cobalt consumption is a good thing across the board." - Reuters

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