Your Phone Runs On Cobalt From DR Congo
BY TYLER DURDEN
The chances of your phone's battery being made using cobalt from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are, as Statista's Martin Armstrong notes in this chart using data cited in Statista's DossierPlus 'Mining Industry in Africa' shows, very high.
The country, ranked 166 out of 180 countries on Transparency International's 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index (with a score of just 20 out of a possible 100), and with an estimated one million people living in modern slavery as of 2018, also happens to be the world's largest producer of the metal key to lithium-ion battery production.
The use of child labor in the mining of cobalt in DRC is well documented, with the U.S. Department of Labor estimating that 40,000 children, some as young as 6 years old, work in the mines there.
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/your-phone-runs-cobalt-dr-congo
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Two were made obsolete by my cell phone providers, 2G and 3G no longer supported. The third phone was lost or stolen, I'm not quite sure which since someone answered but hung up on me when I called it, and my wife got a call from it too.
My fourth phone is a flip phone like all the others, like a Star Trek Communicator! That's the only reason I find cell phone tolerable.
That's four phones in about twenty years. Not too bad.
My wife has a personal smart phone and a required work smart phone that sometimes wakes us up in the middle of the night.
The last time I myself carried a work cell phone they were the size of lunch boxes.
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I was young, I thought that was so cool! They needed me! I didn't see it as a leash, albeit one I could hand off to the next guy when my call ended.
I'm not sure I'd ever be happy with a mandatory work required smart phone, but you do what you gotta do.
