Apple says 30 percent of the material across every product it shipped in 2025 was recycled content, the highest company-wide figure it has published. That number sits above a set of standing material commitments Apple applies across its current product line rather than to any single device: full recycled cobalt in its batteries, full recycled rare earth elements in its magnets, and full recycled gold and tin in its circuit boards.
Key facts
| Figure | What Apple publishes |
|---|---|
| Recycled material across all products shipped, 2025 | 30% (Apple’s highest ever) |
| Best single product figure | MacBook Neo, 60% recycled content overall |
| Recycled cobalt, all Apple-designed batteries | 100% |
| Recycled rare earth elements, all magnets | 100% |
| Recycled gold plating, all Apple-designed circuit boards | 100% |
| Recycled tin soldering, circuit boards | 100% |
A company-wide figure, not one product’s report
The 30 percent figure describes material across everything Apple shipped in 2025, not a single device’s Product Environmental Report. Apple states MacBook Neo separately as its best current single-product figure, at 60 percent recycled content overall, but Apple has not published a similar company-wide breakdown showing which products sit above or below the 30 percent average, or how the figure is weighted across a product line that ranges from a MacBook to a set of earbuds.
The four materials Apple commits to across its whole line
Apple states four materials at 100 percent recycled content as commitments that apply broadly rather than to one device: recycled cobalt in “all Apple-designed batteries,” recycled rare earth elements in “all magnets,” and recycled gold plating and recycled tin soldering in Apple-designed printed circuit boards. Apple’s own wording uses “all” for each of these four claims, which is why they read as standards for the current product line rather than a single report’s own figures.
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Apple states the 30 percent figure in the same April 16, 2026 Newsroom release that carries its emissions and supplier-energy numbers, headlined around the highest-ever recycled material Apple has shipped, and backed by a fuller environmental progress report PDF and an environment hub with a dedicated answers page. Unlike the manufacturing figures printed only inside a single product’s own PDF, the company-wide 30 percent figure and the four material commitments above all appear in the press release text itself, not only in the longer document behind it. Apple has not published a prior-year percentage in the same release, so “highest ever” is stated without a specific figure to compare it against.
Packaging and plastic reached their 2025 goals
Apple states its packaging is 100 percent fiber-based, using only recycled or responsibly sourced fibers, and describes this as a 2025 goal it has completed. Separately, Apple states it avoided 15,000 metric tons of plastic between 2021 and 2025, which it also counts as a completed 2025 goal.
| Goal | Status Apple reports |
|---|---|
| 100% fiber-based packaging | Completed, 2025 goal |
| Plastic removal, 15,000 metric tons, 2021-2025 | Completed, 2025 goal |
| 30% recycled material across all products shipped | Reported as of 2025, described as Apple’s highest ever |
Each of this year’s products states its own figure separately
iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone Duo, Apple Watch Series 12, Apple Watch Ultra 4 and AirPods 5 each state their own overall recycled-content percentage in a separate Product Environmental Report. The 30 percent figure above is Apple’s company-wide total across everything it shipped in 2025, not an average pulled from those five documents alone, and Apple has not published the arithmetic connecting one to the other.
What Apple has not said
Apple has not published the recycled-content percentage for every product line in the company-wide release, only MacBook Neo’s figure by name, and it has not said whether the 30 percent company-wide figure includes accessories sold separately from a device. It has not stated whether the figure is a weighted average by units shipped or by material mass. Apple’s next scheduled update to these commitments has not been announced as of September 12, 2026, and its environmental progress reports have historically arrived each April.
