"Greater stakeholder engagement, including from global buyers, will help to overcome this impasse," Baumann-Pauly said. EGC signed a supply deal with Trafigura in November 2020 and published a sourcing standard, but has yet to start buying cobalt due to political wrangling. Now diggers work in deep tunnels with no personal protective equipment, and women miners said they make less money than before, according to the report.Įntreprise Generale du Cobalt, a unit of state mining company Gecamines, was granted a monopoly on artisanal cobalt by government decree. The Sicomines Copper-Cobalt Mine is a surface mine located in Katanga, Democratic Republic of the Congo. In an e360 interview, author Siddharth Kara talks about the horrific conditions in the mines that are putting thousands of workers at risk. The race for high-tech metals has sparked a cobalt boom in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that has come at a steep human cost. Trafigura and Congo mining firm Chemaf's formalisation scheme at Mutoshi, launched in 2018, ended abruptly in March 2020 with the coronavirus pandemic. A creuseur, or digger, climbs through a cobalt and copper mine in Kawama, Congo, in June. For Your Phone and EV, a Cobalt Supply Chain to a Hell on Earth. So far, attempts to formalise the industry have fallen flat. Seems like this wants another run to the mid 20s after its multi-month consolidation. "If we get this wrong, cobalt probably will cease to be in batteries in 20 years' time." The issues around artisanal mining are an existential threat to the cobalt industry, according to Marina Demidova, head of communications at the Cobalt Institute. Recent research by Amnesty International found that children as young as seven are working in cobalt mines, often for less than 2 a day. ![]() ![]() Apple, for example, aims to massively reduce its use of all materials sourced directly from mines, and has said that 13% of the cobalt shipped in its products in 2021 came from recycling. DRC: Subcontracted workers on Cobalt mines supplying electric vehicle manufacturers report discrimination, abuse, low wages & precarious working conditions incl co. While some observers suggest that the expected surge in cobalt demand provides a much-needed source of income for people in the DRC, in reality artisanal miners are barely being paid enough to survive.
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