Did you know that there is blood on your cell phone?
When I first heard this question, I had to find out more.
What I discovered next shocked me and I felt compelled to tell everybody the truth about conflict minerals.
Tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold are all conflict minerals, all of which are found in cell phones and laptops etc.
Here are some interesting facts about these minerals:-
Tin – used for joining wires to circuit boards in cell phones
Tantalum – stores electricity in cell phones. Without tantalum your phone would fall silent
Tungsten – enables your cell phone to vibrate
Gold – used to coat the wiring and is the highest value metal inside your cell phone. Finally,
Coltan – (also known as black gold) without coltan cell phones cannot operate.
Coltan is also partially responsible for the death of over 5 million people in Congo since 1990.
Those who mine coltan are not aware of its uses, mainly because most of them are young children. Armoured groups make millions of dollars each year trading these minerals.
Guess what they buy with these millions? Weapons! Hence the name conflict minerals.
Amazingly what should have been a blessing to many, who found employment, has now become a curse.
In an attempt to bring an end to minerals being used in this manner some electronic companies have signed codes of conduct excluding conflict minerals from their supply chains.
As you have read these statistics, I am sure you are now aware that trading conflict minerals is a very complex problem and one that will not easily be remedied.
It therefore remains for us to put pressure on more electronic companies to raise awareness so that they too will sign the code of conduct. Then maybe in our life time the use of conflict minerals will be eradicated completely.