Every Device Will Die Eventually. Here’s How to Shop for a New One More Sustainably.

The above tips will go the furthest in helping you to lower the environmental impact of your tech, because most of a device’s environmental impact happens at the manufacturing step. Recognizing this, companies have begun to implement their own changes in their materials and manufacturing processes. Here are the manufacturer sustainability claims that experts say matter most.

Environmental impact reports

First, don’t be fooled by “carbon neutral” claims—no product is created with absolutely zero emissions. “I’m highly skeptical of carbon neutrality, because it means that they’re probably investing in some kind of offset to reduce that,” said Jeremy Gregory, executive director of the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium (of which Apple is a member). “And getting high-quality offsets these days is very challenging.” But it is a good step when companies measure each product’s environmental impact—and work to reduce it.

Many experts we spoke to said that they would look for products and manufacturers with a life-cycle assessment (LCA) or product carbon footprint (PCF) report. These reports, especially those that have been verified by a third party, are a good indicator that a company is paying attention to environmental impact and taking steps to understand what changes would make the biggest difference.

The reports typically measure the impact of a product’s whole life cycle, which includes the initial extraction of the raw materials, the manufacturing and assembly process, the shipment of the product, use for the product’s estimated lifespan, and the product’s disposal at the end of its life. One example is the UL Environmental Product Declaration ecolabel, which displays carbon emissions and resource use. One of our gaming mouse picks, Razer’s Basilisk V3 Pro, has been certified with this label. But different reports use different methods, so their estimates aren’t apples to apples.

Recycled materials

In general, devices that use recycled and low-emissions materials have a smaller footprint than those made with “virgin” materials, even though the process of recycling materials also has environmental impacts. These are the materials we’ve seen, in devices such as laptops and phones, that help reduce the impact of manufacturing.

Recycled and low-emissions aluminum and other metals

Products that use recycled aluminum represent a significant improvement over those that use virgin aluminum, though the improvement doesn’t completely eliminate the metal’s environmental impacts. Other recycled metals, such as recycled steel and magnesium, also offer improvements over their virgin counterparts, but many tech companies are focusing on aluminum as their highest priority.

“Virgin aluminum is very energy intensive, it requires a lot of electricity,” MIT’s Gregory said. Apple’s 2023 Environmental Progress Report measures recycled aluminum at one-fortieth the carbon emissions of virgin aluminum, and Apple’s Sarah Chandler said that recycled aluminum is the most impactful materials change that the company has made to its products so far. “There’s a huge reduction in carbon footprint from recycled aluminum,” said Chandler.

As a result, more tech companies are turning to recycled aluminum for their products. The 13-inch MacBook Air (2025), for example, uses 100% recycled aluminum in its enclosure, while the Apple iPhone 16 uses 85% recycled aluminum in its body.

But there’s not enough recycled aluminum to meet demand, so lower-emissions aluminum processes are also important. “There’s definitely a place for those technologies in addition to recycling,” said Nick Abbatiello, senior distinguished engineer at Dell. “You need to do it all.”

Recycled circuit boards

Computer chips and circuit boards (PCBs) have the largest environmental impact due to the energy-intensive process required to make them. Apple has started using some recycled materials in its PCBs. In its 2024 MacBook Air models, the company moved to recycled tin and recycled gold in the solder and plating of multiple PCBs. These MacBooks also use recycled copper foil in several PCBs, the thermal sheet, and the main logic board.

Considering the outsize impact of chips and PCBs on a device’s environmental footprint, these changes, similar to the recycled metals above, do have a positive impact, and we hope to see innovation from more companies on this front.

Batteries with recycled cobalt

Cobalt, used in batteries for phones and laptops, is another metal with a significant number of impacts—not just environmental impacts but human-rights impacts as well. Recycled cobalt, including that derived from recycled electric-vehicle batteries, performs just as well as virgin cobalt. Dell’s sustainability strategy product lead Katie Green told us that one EV battery can be turned into a thousand laptop batteries.

Apple started using 100% recycled cobalt in the batteries of the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus and its 2024 MacBook Air models. In 2025, the company said it was using 99% recycled cobalt across all Apple-designed batteries. Samsung is using 50% recycled cobalt in its newest flagship phones, the Galaxy S25 series. And Dell is using 50% recycled cobalt in the batteries of the Latitude 7350 Detachable and the Latitude 7350 laptops.

Recycled plastics

Compared with the overall impact of chips, circuit boards, and metals, recycled plastic has a smaller impact on a product’s environmental footprint, according to MIT’s Gregory. In fact, switching to aluminum can have a bigger impact than using recycled plastic, because aluminum is more recyclable and therefore more likely to be turned into a new device at the end of its life. HP, for one, has done this with several of its laptop lines for this very reason.

That said, many tech devices, such as laptops from HP and Dell, claim to use PCR (post-consumer recycled) and ocean-bound plastics. (“Ocean-bound” refers to plastics that have been collected from within 30 miles of an ocean coastline or major waterway in a region that lacks waste-management infrastructure.) Manufacturers use these recycled plastics in a variety of parts, including phone bodies, laptop fans, and bezels.

The experts we spoke with said that recycled plastic has a lower impact than virgin plastic. But plastics are not as recyclable as metals such as aluminum, and using recycled plastics often requires adding in fresh plastics for durability.