Apple sets goal to only use recycled materials

In its new Environmental Responsibility Report, Apple reveals it has set a goal to make future products exclusively from recycled materials. The company has set not timetable for its ambitious goal and admits it has not entirely figured out yet how it can make that happen. It's going to be hard to achieve but if the company can reduce its dependence on mining the Earth for new materials, it will also achieve other goals like reducing human rights abuse and ensuring its products don't use minerals from conflict zones.

The announcement, part of Apple’s 2017 Environment Responsibility Report released Wednesday, will commit the company to making devices entirely from recycled materials such as aluminum, copper, tin, and tungsten. But there’s one hiccup: Apple doesn’t know exactly how it’s going to make that happen.

“We’re actually doing something we rarely do, which is announce a goal before we’ve completely figured out how to do it,” Apple’s Vice President of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives and a former head of the EPA, Lisa Jackson, told VICE News during an exclusive visit to Apple’s environmental testing lab on Monday. “So we’re a little nervous, but we also think it’s really important, because as a sector we believe it’s where technology should be going.”