cobalt mine in Idaho’s Salmon River Mountains,

70% of cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where an estimated 40,000 children as young as 6 work in dangerous mines.

current plans are not large enough in scope the task before us is much larger than the current paradigm allows for

Cities such as Lubumbashi and Likasi face serious air pollution because of the thousands of trucks that travel to and from the mines throughout the day. Chronic exposure to such dusts can lead to severe lung diseases. Water is unfit for human consumption and agriculture because soil and water in the immediate vicinity of the mines are polluted by discharges of wastewater.

Problems stemming from artisanal mining include disruption of families, mining-related illnesses, environmental damage, child labor, prostitution and rape.

It is a preferred component in lithium-ion batteries that power laptops, cell phones, and electric vehicles.

The country’s economy is completely dependent on mining. Many poor families are completely dependent on their children working the mines. That $9/day is hard for a child to reject

Walt describes how the multibillion-dollar industry, that has made some people outside Africa really really rich, is not known to workers like Lukasa. He just sells his haul to Chinese traders who have seen their profits increase 400% over the last two years.

This cobalt is found in every lithium-ion rechargeable battery on the planet

Arthur. The 16-year-old boy joined a group of young men who spent two months digging a tunnel 26m straight down before they hit a heterogenite vein. Now they descend into darkness each day, spending up to 24 hours at a time in narrow tunnels unable to stand, hacking away for cobalt. Every minute is suffused with dread, because many tunnels have collapsed in Kasulo, burying alive everyone inside.

Elodie is 15. Her two-month-old son is wrapped tightly in a frayed cloth around her back. He inhales potentially lethal mineral dust every time he takes a breath. Toxicity assaults at every turn; earth and water are contaminated with industrial runoff, and the air is brown with noxious haze. Elodie is on her own here, orphaned by cobalt mines that took both her parents. She spends the entire day bent over, digging with a small shovel to gather enough cobalt-containing heterogenite stone to rinse at nearby Lake Malo to fill one sack. It will take her an entire day to do so, after which Chinese traders will pay her about $0.65 (50p). Hopeless though it may be, it is her and her child’s only means of survival.

cobalt