On an average, Americans tend to spend $485.5 billion per year on numerous electronics from Apple, Samsung, Android, and big tech companies.
Yet as buyers consume new products, they tend not to question what the devices contain or how they are made.
But the demand requires that consumers gain background knowledge about where devices and components come from.
The electronics you carry in your hands contain a main factor of cobalt which powers one’s devices.
Big corruptions find it the cheapest and more affordable to use child labor, without consequences.
The aftermath of mining causes deforestation and the release of chemicals to the environment.
What is cobalt?
Cobalt is a critical mineral used in lithium-ion batteries found in electric vehicles (EVs), energy storage systems, and consumer electronics and superalloys.
Cobalt, mined heavily in DR Congo, Afr
ica, is viewed as an important contributor to the field of renewable energy and sustainable development in both the U.S. and EU, which has classified cobalt as a critical raw material due to the important role it plays in technology.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is by far the world’s largest producer of cobalt, accounting for roughly 70 percent of global production.
Many reports show that western nations like the US , the UK, China and France have given military and financial aid to groups in Rwanda and Uganda to invade cobalt rich areas.
And because of these invasions Congolese people are either killed or enslaved into working in cobalt mines which include women and children, according to Andrew L. Gulley (2022).
The after-effect
Unfortunately Big companies like to profit from free labor in Congo by extracting cobalt.
For decades electronic devices have been powered by the hands and blood of innocent Congolese people. Roughly about 12.5 million Congolese work in mines including children.
The DR Congo Forest is the second largest forest in the world after Amazon. About 20% of it has been destroyed, often as cobalt mines expand their reach.
Cobalt mining resulting in wastes which is becoming significant and disastrous.
As consumers carrying a phone or anything electrical are affecting the cause for wanting more demand and not really questioning where it comes from.
The lack of coverage creates a sense of ignorance in what is going on in other parts of the world. Not really affecting consumers and continuing to support the cause as well as the big corporations.
Africa is one of the richest countries for their natural resources. Somehow the economic benefits are not flowing into the community.
People are overworked in dangerous situations to mine these pieces of metals that go to our technology that we over consume in America.
What are the effects of mining?
“Those chemicals can then be deposited into large reservoirs and those reservoirs can sometimes leak into the surrounding environment. They cause a lot of air pollution depending on how the mining operation takes place,” science teacher Katelynn Lamb said.
How does this situation in Congo affect you?
“I have a phone and morally speaking. It changes the way I look at products technology and phones… I don’t see any of that [cobalt]stuff and the media doesn’t cover it,” Eric Chavez said.
