During their spring conference, Apple not only introduced their all new iPhone SE, iPad Pro and new colours for the Apple Watch strap but also “Liam”, the core technology for Apple’s “Renew” program. Liam is a robot that can completely disassemble the iPhone; simply put, Liam exists to recycle.

A smartphone contains a large amount of heavy metals, such as the cobalt and lithium in the lithium battery; the gold and copper in the camera lens; and the silver and platinum on the circuit board. Improperly discarding these metals can pollute our air, land and water resources, outweighing the benefits that their parent products bring to our life.

This is where Liam comes in. Liam is able to automatically disassemble an iPhone 6. Once the phone is in its hands, Liam easily breaks down and separates the phone’s case, screen, motherboard, battery, and even the tiny screws into their separate categories in just 11 seconds. This process also prevents any toxic chemicals from being in contact with humans. Incredibly, with Liam working just five days a week, it is still able to dismantle a million iPhones in a year. At the moment, Liam is only able to disassemble the iPhone 6, but sooner or later, Apple will develop other robots dedicated to dismantling the iPhone 6 Plus, iPad, MacBook and so on, with each doing their part for the good of the environment.