Google Pixel Phones, Nest Devices & Pixelbooks Have More Recycled Materials Than Ever Before

Google last year had announced that the company by 2022 would use recycled materials to manufacture 100 percent Made by Google products that include Pixel phones, Nest devices, Pixelbooks, and more. The tech giant on Monday claimed that it hit its 2022 goal early as all the new Pixel and Nest products are currently designed with recycled materials. Google is also committing to completely ditch plastic in its hardware packaging by 2025 in a bid to reduce its carbon footprint and tackle climate change across the world. Although the tech giant since the launch of the original Pixel phone in 2016 has been reducing plastic materials in the packaging and replacing it with cardboard, there are still traces of it whether it’s outside the box or inside – covering phone cover, charging cable or so on.

Google says that the newly launched Pixel 5 phone uses 100 percent recycled aluminium for the back panel while the latest Nest Thermostat uses 75 percent post-consumer recycled plastic. The new Nest Audio contains 70 percent recycled plastic across its enclosure parts including the acoustic fabric. The company is further planning to reduce waste during the manufacturing process to achieve the UL 2799 Zero Waste to Landfill certification at all final assembly manufacturing sites by 2022. “We hope this is a milestone on the path to a future where we design out waste and pollution and keep materials in use longer,” David Bourne, sustainability systems architect at Google in a blog post said. Google also aims to use more recycled or renewable materials in at least 50 percent of plastics used in its hardware products. The company commits to sharing learning with industry players to promote sustainable packaging and manufacturing.

Earlier in September, Google had announced its ambitious environmental commitments that include running operations on carbon-free energy by 2030. Its CEO Sundar Pichai in a video had stressed the company’s environmental mission to tackle climate change and adopt more sustainable materials for manufacturing Made by Google hardware. Similarly, several tech giants over the years have pledged to reduce their carbon footprint after continuous backlashing from environmentalists. For instance, Apple has repeatedly stressed that it uses recycled materials on the iPhone models and similarly keeps the packaging as small as it could to ensure zero waste and sustainability. In January, Microsoft had also announced that it would work to remove all the carbon pollution it’s ever released in the atmosphere by 2050 – which is a more difficult endeavour than the milestone Google and Apple have so far pledged.