Apple states that the battery in iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, iPhone Duo, Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 uses 100 percent recycled cobalt. That single figure is the one material claim repeated identically across four of the six products launched this month. AirPods 5’s materials state a recycled-content figure for the earbuds overall, but no separate battery figure appears in the pages checked for this piece.
Grade 5 titanium gets attention as the metal iPhone Duo and Apple Watch Ultra 4 share in their frames and cases. Recycled cobalt is a quieter version of the same pattern, and it runs wider: through the phone, the foldable, and both new Watches.
Key facts
| Product | Recycled cobalt in the battery | Recycled lithium in the battery |
|---|---|---|
| iPhone 18 Pro / iPhone 18 Pro Max | 100 percent | 95 percent |
| iPhone Duo | 100 percent | Not stated in the material checked |
| Apple Watch Series 12 | 100 percent | 95 percent |
| Apple Watch Ultra 4 | 100 percent | Not stated in the material checked |
| AirPods 5 | Not stated in the material checked | Not stated in the material checked |
The same figure, four times over
iPhone 18 Pro‘s Product Environmental Report lists “100% recycled cobalt in the battery” among its component-level materials figures. iPhone Duo‘s press release states “100 percent recycled cobalt in the batteries,” plural, reflecting its dual-battery design across the two halves of the folding phone. Apple Watch Series 12‘s tech specs state “battery 100% recycled cobalt,” and Apple Watch Ultra 4‘s release states “100 percent recycled cobalt battery.” Four separate documents, written for four different products announced across the same week, land on the identical percentage.
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Where lithium narrows the pattern
Cobalt is not the only battery material Apple states a recycled figure for, but it is the only one stated for all four products. Recycled lithium is stated at 95 percent for iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max, and separately at 95 percent for Apple Watch Series 12, an exact match between a phone and a watch announced the same day. Neither iPhone Duo’s press release nor Apple Watch Ultra 4’s release states a lithium figure in the material checked, so the pattern that holds for cobalt across four products narrows to two once lithium is the material in question.
AirPods 5 is the outlier
AirPods 5 is the one product in this launch with a battery and no published battery-material figure at all, cobalt or lithium. Its stated recycled figure, 40 percent recycled material by weight, describes the earbuds and case as a whole rather than singling out the battery the way the four larger products do. That is consistent with how Apple has described AirPods materials in past releases, and this piece does not treat the absence as unusual, only as the point where the four-product pattern stops.
One supplier claim, four products
A recycled-cobalt figure repeated word for word across a phone, a foldable and two watches points to a single sourcing decision applied across Apple’s battery supply chain this year, rather than four separate achievements reached independently by four product teams. Apple’s releases do not state that explicitly, and this article does not claim more than the documents themselves show: four identical figures, in four separate places, for products that otherwise differ in size, price and category.
What Apple has not said
- A battery-material figure of any kind for AirPods 5.
- A recycled-lithium figure for iPhone Duo or Apple Watch Ultra 4.
- Whether the identical 100 percent cobalt figure reflects a shared supplier or a shared standard applied across Apple’s 2026 battery sourcing.
- Any recycled-cobalt figure specific to AirPods Pro 3 or AirPods Max 2, which were not part of this September launch.
iPhone 18 Pro, Apple Watch Series 12, Apple Watch Ultra 4 and AirPods 5 reach stores Friday, September 18, 2026. iPhone Duo follows on October 23. As of September 12, no battery-material figure for AirPods 5 has appeared in any source checked for this piece.