Apple's Daisy took iPhones apart before recycling destroyed their value

Most electronics recycling starts by destroying the device, then trying to separate the mess. That is simple, but it loses value because rare materials and tiny components get mixed with everything else.

Apple's Daisy reversed the order. Built from lessons and parts from the earlier Liam robot, Daisy could handle nine iPhone versions in 2018 and disassemble up to 200 phones per hour while sorting reusable components.

By 2019 Apple had expanded the program through Best Buy in the US and KPN in the Netherlands. The company said each Daisy could process 1.2 million devices per year, and recovered cobalt from batteries could flow back into new Apple batteries.

Disassemble before shredding

It treated an old phone as a structured product, not a pile of scrap.

The robot handled model variation, which is the hard part of automated disassembly.

Cleaner recovered streams made closed-loop sourcing technically plausible.

Reverse logistics gets smarter when recovery is designed around the product's bill of materials, not around generic waste.

Daisy became part of Apple's broader closed-loop materials push. Independent coverage described it as a practical alternative to traditional recycling because it recovered components that bulk processes could damage or mix beyond high-value reuse.