Apple to avoid the cobalt blues

           Before it was vital for the production of batteries, cobalt was primarily used to produce a                                         vibrant color known as “cobalt blue,” such as in this glass pitcher set.

     “Do they recycle cobalt?”
     Leave it to my wife to cut through the clutter.
     “Umm ...” I replied.
     Dozens of reader emails last week focused on the me-me-me flea circus drama of my column about backing out of a humanitarian trip to Congo. (For the record, my wife supported both when I was going — “You’re helping people,” she said, plainly and with a touch of wonder — and when I wasn’t. “Smart,” she concluded).
     Her follow-up reaction, in trademark fashion, zeroed in on the moral issue — children mining cobalt by hand in the Democratic Republic of Congo, source of 70% of the world’s supply of an element essential in the production of rechargeable lithium batteries.
     A few readers airily wished something could be done (the “but of course it can’t!” breathed in a Scarlett O’Hara sigh while collapsing on a mental chaise lounge of resignation was implied), while my wife identified the solution: Recycle the cobalt. She then posed the relevant question: Can it be done?
     I consulted Prof. Google. Why yes, it can.
     Turns out not only can the cobalt in lithium batteries be recycled, but a certain Apple Inc., a few days earlier, had pounded its corporate fist on its global desk and announced that, by God, it would do just that, in an April 13 press release titled: “Apple will use 100 percent recycled cobalt in batteries by 2025.”

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