Apple accused of using child labour to mine cobalt, promises to switch to 100% recycled cobalt by 2025

One of the most crucial elements that is used in the batteries of most pieces of tech is cobalt, a metal that is usually mined out of Africa, specifically, the Democratic Republic of Congo. In and of itself, cobalt mining is a nasty business and causes a lot of environmental damage. However, what’s worse about cobalt mining is that it disproportionately involves child labour. As a result, all tech companies who source their cobalt from Congo, have been accused of using child labour in some form or the other. This includes Apple. 

Apple revealed plans on Thursday to build batteries made completely of recycled cobalt by 2025, as part of its quest to become carbon neutral by 2030.

About 70 per cent of all the global cobalt consumed in a year is mined out of the DRC. Big Tech like Tesla, Apple and other hardware manufacturers take up a major chunk of this mined cobalt, through various corporations they work with for their batteries.

Apple’s announcement – Too little, too late?
CEO Tim Cook, announced that Apple will use 100 per cent cobalt in all of its in-house-designed batteries, adding that “great technology should be excellent for our consumers and the environment.”

Apple stated that it “has greatly extended the usage of certified recycled cobalt over the past three years, making it viable to incorporate it in all Apple-designed batteries by 2025.” This was accomplished with the use of an iPhone disassembly robot that separates batteries from other components, allowing specialised recyclers to recover cobalt and other elements like lithium.

Apple claims it has retrieved 24,250 cobalt since 2019 and will have enough to utilise in all devices by 2025, but the process has been sluggish. This is mostly accomplished through Apple’s trade-in programme, which encourages customers to exchange their old gadgets for new ones. The program’s fine language specifies that phones that are ‘in good shape’ would be given to a new owner.

The dirty secret of all major tech manufacturers
Amnesty International and African Resources Watch (Afrewatch) accused Apple, Samsung, and Sony of insufficient control of their cobalt supply from mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in a 2016 study. 

According to the report, youngsters as young as 12 years old were digging up metal in the mine.

The researchers claimed to have identified 16 global consumer electronics firms that are clients of Asian battery manufacturers who purchase cobalt from the Chinese business.

A year later, Apple declared that it would no longer purchase cobalt mined by hand in Congo since the mines continued to face issues with child labour and terrible working conditions.

At the same time, it was found that 40,000 minors labour in mines on a regular basis.

When Apple was sued
Apple was named in a lawsuit accusing several tech titans of using child labour to extract the mineral. More than a dozen African families sued Apple, alleging that their children were killed or badly injured while mining cobalt for the tech titans.

The case was filed in Washington, DC, on behalf of five youngsters who died and 11 who were wounded while working in the mines.

When the instances happened, they were all between the ages of 13 and 17.

Apple, Microsoft, Google, Tesla, and others all insist on holding cobalt suppliers to the highest standards and only doing business with smelters and refiners who follow their codes of conduct.

The deplorable conditions of cobalt mining
A new set of pictures shot inside mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by Siddharth Kara, an adjunct lecturer at Harvard Kennedy School of Government, may challenge Apple’s assertions that its goods are ethically sourced and marketed. 

Kara claims that his research demonstrates that big tech’s guarantees cannot be trusted. “There are hundreds of thousands of the world’s poorest people, mining for cobalt.”

“They’re doing it for $2 a day, and that’s the difference between eating or not eating that day for them, so they don’t have the choice of saying no.”

Adult miners dig up to 600 feet below ground using simple tools and no protective clothes or modern machinery. Children, however, are sometimes sent down into the tight temporary mining shafts, which are always at risk of collapsing. 

Prolonged cobalt exposure may cause lung illness, blindness, birth deformities, and many types of cancer, according to Kara, who has spent years investigating the matter in the Congo.

“This is a thousand blood diamonds multiplied – diamonds aren’t harmful. ‘And you only purchase a diamond once or twice in your life, but Western culture cannot function for more than 24 hours without technologies that rely on cobalt,” he added.

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