#Age of water mineral content picture free#

In the past year, a Dutch advocacy group called the Center for Research on Multinational Corporations, known as SOMO, and Amnesty International have put out reports alleging improprieties including forced relocations of villages and water pollution. “And it’s met with much muttering and shaking of the head and tuttering - and goes away again.” Labor Department lists Congolese cobalt as a product it has reason to think is produced by child labor.Ĭoncern about how cobalt is mined “comes to the fore every now and again,” said Guy Darby, a veteran cobalt analyst with Darton Commodities in London. The Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition - whose members include companies such as Apple - raised concerns in 2010 about the potential for human rights abuses in the mining of minerals, including cobalt, and the difficulty in tracking supply chains. trade groups have acknowledged the problem. Apple told The Post that it now supports including cobalt in the law.Ĭongo’s cobalt trade has been the target of criticism for nearly a decade, mostly from advocacy groups. Some say cobalt should be added to the conflict-minerals list, even if cobalt mines are not thought to be funding war. The result is a system widely seen as preventing human rights abuses.

#Age of water mineral content picture free#

law requires American companies to attempt to verify that any tin, tungsten, tantalum and gold they use is obtained from mines free of militia control in the Congo region. Scrutiny is heightened for a few of these minerals. Today, more than five decades after Congo gained its independence, it is minerals that attract foreign companies. A century ago, companies plundered Congo’s rubber sap and elephant tusks while the country was a Belgian colony. Yet 60 percent of the world’s cobalt originates in Congo - a chaotic country rife with corruption and a long history of foreign exploitation of its natural resources. The cobalt then passes through several companies and travels thousands of miles. Armed guards block access to many of Congo’s mines. Following the path from mine to finished product is difficult but possible, The Post discovered. Samsung SDI, another large battery maker, said that it is conducting an internal investigation but that “to the best of our knowledge,” while the company does use cobalt mined in Congo, it does not come from Huayou.įew companies regularly track where their cobalt comes from. Pyers also said Apple is committed to working with Huayou Cobalt to clean up the supply chain and to addressing the underlying issues, such as extreme poverty, that result in harsh work conditions and child labor.Īnother Huayou customer, LG Chem, one of the world’s leading battery makers, told The Post it stopped buying Congo-sourced minerals late last year. Paula Pyers, a senior director at Apple in charge of supply-chain social responsibility, said the company plans to increase scrutiny of how all its cobalt is obtained. The Cupertino, Calif.-based tech giant said that an estimated 20 percent of the cobalt it uses comes from Huayou Cobalt. More in this series: Cobalt in Congo and Graphite in ChinaĪpple, in response to questions from The Post, acknowledged that this cobalt has made its way into its batteries. More in this series: Cobalt in Congo and Lithium in Argentina More in this series: Graphite in China and Lithium in Argentina But the desperate search for the ingredients carries a steep cost. The world has grown reliant on lithium-ion batteries that power smartphones, laptops and electric cars. And the mining activity exposes local communities to levels of toxic metals that appear to be linked to ailments that include breathing problems and birth defects, health officials say. An estimated 100,000 cobalt miners in Congo use hand tools to dig hundreds of feet underground with little oversight and few safety measures, according to workers, government officials and evidence found by The Washington Post during visits to remote mines. The world’s soaring demand for cobalt is at times met by workers, including children, who labor in harsh and dangerous conditions. Then he slung his shovel over his shoulder.

But now a debt collector stood at the door. “Do you have enough money to buy flour today?” he asked his wife. And he planned to mine by hand all day and through the night. A proud man, he likes to wear a button-down shirt even to mine. He grabbed his metal shovel and broken-headed hammer from a corner of the room he shares with his wife and child. But Mayamba, 35, knew nothing about his role in this sprawling global supply chain.