For years, big tech companies like Apple and Tesla have assured the customers of their glossy stores and showrooms that all their goods are ethically sourced and sold.
But
a new series of images taken from inside mines in the Democratic
Republic of Congo, where 90 percent of the world's cobalt is mined and
used to make the batteries that power our tech-led lives, raise
uncomfortable questions.
Cobalt is the chemical element found in
almost every tech gadget that uses a lithium-powered battery 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 insist that they hold cobalt suppliers to the
highest of standards, and that they only trade with smelters and
refiners who adhere to their codes of conduct.
But the photos and
videos that DailyMail.com can share today from some of the largest
mines in Africa - where many of these suppliers get their cobalt - tell a
different story.
Speaking to DailyMail.com ahead of its
release, Kara, an adjunct lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School of
Government, said his research proves that the confident assurances of
big tech can't be trusted.
'There are hundreds of thousands of the poorest people on the planet [mining for cobalt].
'The moral clock has been dialed back to colonial times.
'They’re
doing it for $2-a-day and for them, it’s the difference between whether
or not they eat that day so they don’t have the option of saying no.'
The
sudden demand for the eco-friendly vehicles, ironically driven by
environmentally-conscious, is having a catastrophic effect in Congo,
according to Kara.
'It’s supposed to be a green choice, getting an EV. Well it’s not green for everybody.'
Coupled with the immediate problems of overpopulated, underregulated mines is the added danger of cobalt's toxicity...<<<Read More>>>...