Dave was first deployed in 2020 and, once Daisy removes the Taptic Engine – the component vibrates when you press a button – Dave then secures the module and precisely cuts it open to recover rare earth magnets and tungsten.
Then, there’ s Taz – the shredder. Unveiled in 2022, Taz uses a shredderlike technology to separate magnets from audio modules. Unlike standard shredders that pulverise everything, Taz is tuned to keep the magnetic material intact, preventing it from being lost so it can be reused.
The scale of the challenge The impact of this robotic army is huge. A single Daisy robot can process 1.2 million iPhones a year and, thanks to these interventions, nearly 20 % of all material used in Apple products in 2021 came from recycled sources. Today, the company uses 99 % recycled rare earth elements in its magnets – a figure that was almost zero just a few years ago.
For Daisy, Dave and Taz to work, they need phones – which is where Apple’ s consumers come in. Apple’ s trade-in programmes are not a ploy to boost sales, but are the fuel supply for the Material Recovery Lab. Every iPhone traded in at an Apple Store is a potential candidate for Daisy’ s disassembly line.
It is also part of Apple’ s higher motive – to meet the goals of its Apple 2030 pledge. The company has promised to be 100 % carbon neutral across its entire supply chain and product life cycle by the end of the decade. Recovering materials like aluminum and gold requires a fraction of the energy needed to mine them from the earth. For instance, using recycled aluminum in the MacBook Air helped cut its carbon footprint by nearly half. The future of tech is not just about building the next big thing – it’ s about taking apart the last one.
218 January 2026