17.12.19
Is Your Phone Tainted by the Misery of the 35,000 Children in Congo's Mines?
The field research shows that children as young as six are among those risking their lives amid toxic dust to mine cobalt for the world’s big electronics firms. This cobalt is found in every lithium-ion rechargeable battery on the planet – from smartphones to tablets to laptops to electric vehicles. It is also used to fashion superalloys to manufacture jet engines, gas turbines and magnetic steel. You cannot send an email, check social media, drive an electric car or fly home for the holidays without using this cobalt. this cobalt is not awash in cerulean hues. Instead, it is smeared in misery and blood. Apple, Google, Microsoft, Tesla, and Dell have all been accused of ‘aiding and abetting’ the use of forced child labor in cobalt mines and being complicit in exposing the children to working conditions resulting in death and serious injury. The five companies are named in a lawsuit brought on behalf of both injured children and the parents of children killed in cobalt mining accidents. Credit: in the now
Poverty deprives people of adequate education, health care and of life's most basic necessities- safe living conditions (including clean air and clean drinking water) and an adequate food supply. The developed (industrialized) countries today account for roughly 20 percent of the world's population but control about 80 percent of the world's wealth.
Poverty and pollution seem to operate in a vicious cycle that, so far, has been hard to break. Even in the developed nations, the gap between the rich and the poor is evident in their respective social and environmental conditions.
Poverty and pollution seem to operate in a vicious cycle that, so far, has been hard to break. Even in the developed nations, the gap between the rich and the poor is evident in their respective social and environmental conditions.
