The simple reason why black devices contain more recycled plastic than white ones
Tech manufacturers are paying more attention to ensuring that their operations reduce, or even eliminate, their carbon footprint, something Apple has already promised with its smartwatch, for example. A key aspect of this is product design that seeks to use recycled materials, especially plastic.
Plastic is one of the human-made materials that has the greatest impact on the environment. An estimated 15 million metric tons end up in the sea each year, which by 2025 will represent a third of the total weight of all fish combined.
Some technology manufacturers are using plastic waste collected from the sea as materials for their products, as is the case with Microsoft.
Another option is for manufacturers to use as much post-consumer plastic as possible, or PCR plastic. That’s the case with Acer, whose Aspire Vero laptop uses 30% PCR and up to 50% in its keys, reducing its manufacturing CO2 emissions by 21%.
But the truth is that the largest source of recycled plastic used in the manufacture of other devices is precisely old electronic products.
This creates a strange reality today: Although electronic products of all colors can use some recycled plastic from old devices, black devices tend to contain higher amounts of recycled plastic.
The reason is precisely that historically most devices have been black. Even today, most products such as cell phones, keyboards, or mice have at least one black version.
This frees up more black plastic for recycling, which in turn makes it easier to convert into dark-coloured devices.
Black plastic is currently causing controversy due to the abundance of black products in e-waste. Although it accounts for 15% of all plastics that end up in recycling containers worldwide, most recycling plants use automated sorting processes that do not detect black plastics, so in many cases they end up in landfills.
Additionally, the way plastic is recycled heats up all the waste. There are scientific studies, such as one conducted by the University of Plymouth in 2018, that show traces of contaminants in everyday objects from black plastic recycled from discarded electronics.
Not only are recent scientific studies making progress in facilitating the correct detection of black plastic in recycling plants, a new type of plastic has already been discovered that, unlike common plastic, can be degraded more efficiently, cleaned up and reused more times.