Apple has a business model that focuses on iPhone users replacing their phones every year. This results in a large number of iPhones being traded-in that need recycling. This is where Apple’s new recycling robot named Daisy comes in.
Daisy is more than just a simple robot. It is a whole system rather than an individual robot. Liam was Apple’s first disassembly robot launched two years ago. Apple made improvements in the new system based on what they learned from the previous robot. Daisy even has one of Liam’s parts.
What makes this system special is that it is capable of disassembling 9 versions of iPhones at a rate of 200 iPhones per hour. It removes the components and sorts them accordingly based on whether they will be recycled or reused. According to Apple, it’s able to “recover valuable materials that traditional recyclers cannot.”
It is still unknown what the future of the recycling robot will be. There could be a centrally-located Daisy or there could be multiple robots in different locations. Apple has not yet made a comment on that. We will learn more in a couple of days.