The shaming images that show where our iPhones, laptops and EV car batteries REALLY come from: The truth about the Congolese mines where kids are paid $2-a-day to dig for cobalt
A new series of images taken from inside cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo raise uncomfortable questions for American tech companies claiming to be 'clean'. Cobalt is the chemical element is found in almost every tech gadget that uses a lithium-powered batter on the market today - a smartphone, tablet or laptop requires a few grams of it, while an electric vehicle requires 10kg. Apple, Microsoft, Google, Tesla and others all say the mines aren't their responsibility, and that it's down to their partners to ensure they are run safely, and humanely. The photos and videos that DailyMail.com can share today tell a different story.
its so sad, I have a flip phone and I don't know how much of any of that is in it but I will not buy a I-phone. I still use a computer that's 10 years or more old. OS7 is good enough for me.
It's a very good thing for the world to extend the lifetime of old equipment. You can upgrade when you need to by buying secondhand old equipment and this is still very good for the world IMO.
This is a truly ancient story, going back to the dawn of human history. The author of this article seems to believe that this is something new that should be eradicated. The West has just been blind to this reality for centuries.
Yea, who cares.
I didn't say that I "didn't care"... just that this is not a new story. We can care, but tell me one thing we can do about it, OTHER than abandon our phones and tablets and laptops etc.
Yet another reason why batteries absolutely suck!
Yea, who cares.
Joseph Conrad (Jozef Konrad) - "Heart of Darkness"
Good read, and shows that nothing has changed in more than a hundred years. The lifestyle we all enjoy in the "First World" comes at the suffering of people in the "Third World".
This has been ongoing in Congo for decades and mostly ignored. Today, people think Central Africa resembles the images of Wakanda on their iPhones.
I love cell phones