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You are probably reading this article on a tablet, smartphone, or laptop computer. If so, your device could very well contain cobalt from the Democratic Republic of Congo, an impoverished yet mineral-rich nation in central Africa, that provides 60 percent of the world's cobalt. (The remaining 40 percent is sourced in smaller amounts from a number of other nations, including China, Canada, Russia, Australia and the Philippines.)
Cobalt is used to build rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, an integral part of the mobile technology that has become commonplace in recent years. Tech giants such as Apple and Samsung, as well as automakers like Tesla, GM, and BMW, which are starting to produce electric cars on a mass scale, have an insatiable appetite for cobalt. But unfortunately, this appetite comes at a high cost, both for humans and for the environment.
The Washington Post has an in-depth story, THE COBALT PIPELINE - Tracing the path from deadly hand-dug mines in Congo to consumers' phones and laptops. It summarizes the situation:
The Post traced this cobalt pipeline and, for the first time, showed how cobalt mined in these harsh conditions ends up in popular consumer products. It moves from small-scale Congolese mines to a single Chinese company — Congo DongFang International Mining, part of one of the world's biggest cobalt producers, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt — that for years has supplied some of the world's largest battery makers. They, in turn, have produced the batteries found inside products such as Apple's iPhones — a finding that calls into question corporate assertions that they are capable of monitoring their supply chains for human rights abuses or child labor.
How much culpability do regular people have when they do not have a choice of the source of the components that go into their devices?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 26 2016, @03:49AM
If you participate in the world economy in any way, it's highly likely that some of the money you are spending will wind up in the hands of people who you don't really like. Whether that's in the form of supporters of whichever American presidential candidate you find to be more criminal, or a country that practices female genital mutilation, or sponsors terrorism, or hunts whales, or whatever, every dollar you spend funds something unsavory.
If you want to go live in a commune somewhere that grows all their own food and makes all their own possessions (with no imports from the outside world at all, including things like solar panels and plumbing) then you might be able to almost get away with it, but even they have to find a way to pay property tax.
Frankly I do not think it is even all that noble. Every country goes through a Dickensian phase on its way from subsistence farming to modern economy. (In the US we got black slavery instead). By refusing to trade with them, all you do is prolong that stage of development. The solution isn't even trying to purge the supply chain of morally objectionable methods, but rather to work toward political change in those countries that will make those methods unacceptable to the people in charge there. Otherwise it is just economic sanctions writ small - and as we have seen over and over again (but never seem to learn), economic sanctions have no effect on politics except to make them more entrenched.