Apple's robot rips apart iPhones for recycling

Lisa Jackson, Apple vice president for Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives, introduces a robot named Liam that deconstructs iPhones during an event at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California March 21, 2016

Reuters 21 March 2016: Apple Inc (AAPL.O) on Monday unveiled a robotic system called Liam to take apart junked iPhones and recover valuable materials that can be recycled, such as silver and tungsten.

The move is an attempt to address criticism that Apple's products, while sleek and seamless in design, are so tightly constructed that their components can be difficult to disassemble, refurbish and reuse.

Liam, which has been under development for nearly three years, will initially focus on the iPhone 6. Apple plans to modify and expand the system to handle different devices and recover more resources, the company said.

The system started to operate at full capacity last month and can take apart one iPhone 6 every 11 seconds to recover aluminum, copper, tin, tungsten, cobalt, gold and silver parts, according...read on.