What’s Happening: As the world grapples with unprecedented levels of electronic waste, Apple is fine-tuning a sophisticated de-manufacturing robot that intercepts recyclable metal components from millions of iPhones.

The Download: When it comes to sustainability, we often view the diminishing ozone layer and the scourge of microplastics as topics of utmost concern. Less frequently acknowledged is e-waste, the onslaught of phones, laptops, televisions, and other electronics we blithely discard when their newer, sleeker iterations hit shelves. Though wireless technology advances mean fewer cords, humanity generated a record 59 million tons of e-waste in 2019 alone—a number the Natural Resources Defense Council expects will increase 30 percent over the next decade. These materials often contain such toxic metals as lead, mercury, and nickel, which can cause respiratory and cardiovascular disease with too much exposure.

Given that planned obsolescence is a key strategy of many electronics companies, what are they doing to combat e-waste? Apple, the tech juggernaut that sells 240 million iPhones per year, has been developing a de-manufacturing robot that can take apart iPhones and recycle interior metals like gold and tungsten. It launched in 2016 as Liam, which could disassemble an iPhone 5S in 12 minutes. After some improvements, Liam relaunched two years later as Daisy, a state-of-the-art robot that can process 23 different models in as little as 18 seconds.

How does it work? Given that a multitude of metals composes a smartphone’s compact innards, Daisy is essentially a five-robot assembly line that breaks iPhones down into 15 component parts. One cell forcefully punches holes around the device’s tiny external screws to open it up; another applies frigid air to strip adhesive from the battery. Once the battery is harvested, Daisy uses sophisticated AI to separate metal components from the phone’s housing, which are then hand-sorted by humans at the end of the chain. Materials are repurposed into newer products—iPhone models use recycled tungsten and gold, and 13-inch MacBook Airs are made with 40 percent recycled material.

While Daisy signals major progress in the push to minimize e-waste, many hurdles remain. Apple is only operating two Daisy models—one in the Netherlands and another at the company’s Material Recovery Lab in Texas—that each process up to 1.2 million iPhones per year. Achieving circularity may seem futile considering how Apple sells 200 times as many iPhones annually, but recycling metals has an outsize positive impact. According to Wallpaper, one metric ton of recovered phone innards avoids mining 2,000 metric tons of rock—a notable figure given the deplorable conditions cobalt miners face in Africa.

Apple isn’t the only tech giant to address the mounting issue. Last year, major companies like Dell, Microsoft, and Google joined an initiative aimed at creating a circular economy for electronics by 2030. The Circular Electronics Partnership, spearheaded by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and the World Economic Forum, marks the first time major companies and industry experts are laying out a roadmap toward circularity. According to the groups, though, this is only a first step and doesn’t cover any financial commitments. For consumers, the best course of action is to take any electronics with a plug or battery to a local e-waste recycling facility.

In Their Own Words: “With mounting volumes of production and disposal, the world faces what one recent international forum described as a mounting ‘tsunami of e-waste,’ putting lives and health at risk,” says Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general at the World Health Organization. “In the same way the world has rallied to protect the seas and their ecosystems from plastic and microplastic pollution, we need to rally to protect our most valuable resource—the health of our children—from this growing threat.”

Surface Says: WALL-E meets Daisy, an e-waste romance. If only Pixar would take our calls.

Have a news story our readers need to see? Submit it here.

Reach the design world every morning. Find out more about advertising in the Design Dispatch.

From the sleek packaging of its products to its gorgeous stores around the world, Aesop continues to burnish its reputation for strong design principles. The latest example is a new brick-and-mortar in Cambridge, a collaboration between the Australian skincare and cosmetics brand and English studio James Plumb, who has fashioned the interiors at outposts in London and Bath.

Located on Trinity Street, the boutique was conceived as a “woven reading room” and incorporates locally sourced materials such as freshwater bulrush plants and hemp grown at nearby Margent Farm, known for its organic and regenerative practices. The bulrush plants were handwoven by Felicity Irons of Rush Matters to create oversized, textured shelves, while the hemp was combined with bio-resin to form geometric slabs of cabinetry.

Antique armchairs and 19th-century polished wooden floorboards imbue the interiors with a sense of place, as does dark brown exterior reminiscent of well-worn leather books—a wink at the city’s academic DNA. It’s a lovely environment to drop into when replenishing your Fabulous Face Cleanser.

From tubular seats to chubby ceramic lamps, the neotenic furniture movement is showing no signs of slowing down. Its latest entry comes from Dutch studio Raw Color, who teamed with Spanish furniture mainstay Sancal on the joyful Link & Loop furniture range. Cylindrical motifs define the collection, which encompasses the chain-like Link Sofa, its enveloping Loop counterpart, and their respective poufs and backrests that can be used to fashion matching armchairs.

The collaboration arose during pandemic isolation with the hope that users could sit with one another again once normalcy returned. Both seating families come in a variety of colors chosen to play with light and perspective. and can be upholstered in the Kvadrat x Febrik Sprinkles collection for a speckled touch.

Dior has long had a knack for churning out viral styles, since long before “going viral” entered the cultural parlance. The French fashion house’s Lady Dior handbag has been a repeat hit ever since Princess Diana rocked it in the ‘90s. Its latest turn in the spotlight will see it reimagined by 11 global artists as part of the Dior Lady Art campaign, in which today’s foremost creative talents are invited to reinvent pieces from the brand’s past and present. The eleven artists putting their spin on the Lady Dior handbag this time around include Ghada Amer, Brian Calvin, Sara Cwynar, Alex Gardner, Shara Hughes, Dorothy Iannone, Minjung Kim, Zhenya Machneva, Bouthayna Al Muftah, Françoise Pétrovitch and Wang Yuyang.

Our weekly roundup of the internet’s most preposterous headlines, from the outrageous to the outright bizarre.

An NFT Company Is Trying to Buy the Amazon to Save It. It’s Not Going Well. [Vice]

Look Out for Falling Iguanas As Temperatures Drop [Washington Post]

The Alt-Right Manipulated My Comic. Then AI Claimed It. [The New York Times]

TikTok Is Likened to “Highly Addictive and Destructive” Drug FENTANYL by Senior US Congressman, Due to Its “Corrosive Impact” [Daily Mail]

Florida Burglary Suspects Arrested After Calling 911 to Help Move “Their Belongings” [New York Post]

Good Job, Internet: You Bullied NFTs Out of Mainstream Games [PCGamer]

An Airline Worker Died After Being “Ingested Into the Engine” of a Plane [NPR]

Anyone Hoping for Aliens to Contact Earth Will Have to Wait Another 400 Years at Least [Time]

Every year, technology companies prepare to unveil their most outlandish experiments at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. The convention’s wall-to-wall array of zany gadgets, which run the gamut from nibbling animatronic plushies to exercise machines with ludicrously large OLED displays, instills wonder about what the future holds for consumer technology. Gawking aside, you don’t have to be a tech wiz to realize most of the innovations never hit shelves—but that’s part of the fun. At CES, companies are more focused on pushing the envelope and tickling the imagination than hashing out price points and production.

The pandemic, of course, has thrown a wrench in the spectacle. The show once attracted 200,000 attendees but went fully virtual in 2021 and isn’t projected to meet its pre-pandemic attendance this year. Rising economic uncertainty, scant access to parts and manufacturing, and stagnant venture-capital funding are raising the barriers faced by startups seeking to bring products to market. Mass layoffs and policymakers suspicious of Big Tech’s dominance only reduce the likelihood that startups can cash out and get acquired by a large firm. This is all fueling tech analysts’ predictions of seeing familiar items on the floor and fewer tricked-out gadgets. Despite the grim outlook, this year’s edition has no shortage of innovation.

Laurea handcrafts pure 24-karat gold into beautiful wearable form. Designed and crafted by a highly skilled team of artisans in both Palm Beach and Veneto, Italy, Laurea connects old-world crafting techniques with modern investing. Sold by weight and at prices linked to the current price of gold, Laurea jewelry lives digitally in online client portfolios, allowing customers to track the value of their investment pieces in real-time and the ability to sell back their jewelry at any time for its current gold value.

Surface Says: Laurea brings a rare mindset to the world of high-end jewelry in that each piece is treated as an asset whose value can be tracked in a digital portfolio. More than a beautiful bauble, every purchase can be sold back or traded up.

This startup harnesses solar energy to make high-tech protein out of thin air.

You can rent Jean-Michel Basquiat’s former studio—for $60,000 a month.

Sun Ra’s cosmic cover art is celebrated in a new Fantagraphics publication.

The “social omnivore” diet of selective vegetarianism is gaining popularity.