The Global Impact of Smartphone Metals

The global demand for metals like cobalt, lithium, graphite, and tin to power smartphones and electric vehicles drives a hazardous and often exploitative industry worldwide.

### The Global Supply Chain of Key Metals in Smartphones
* 📱  There are **more smartphones in the world than there are people**, and **over 25 metals are hiding in each device**.
* 💰  In Australia, scrappers have built a business removing gold from old electronics, which is used to make **circuit boards and cell phones**.
* 🌏  The world's 9 billion smartphones rely on metals sourced from various locations, such as **lithium-rich lands in the Andes**, **Indonesia's underwater tin mines**, and the **Atacama Salt Flats in Chile**.
* 🗑️  Over the past decade, electronic waste around the world has grown by **at least 60%**, with over **50 million metric tons of trash generated every year as of 2019**.
* ♻️  While recovering metals like copper, gold, and palladium from electronic waste is possible at massive recycling facilities, only a **small percentage of e-waste is formally collected** in countries like Australia and the US.
* 🇧🇴  Bolivia, with its vast lithium reserves, is seen as the "**Saudi Arabia of lithium**" and a **key player in the future of the electric vehicle industry**.
* 💧  The lithium mining industry in Bolivia's Uyuni Salt Flat has raised concerns about **water usage in one of the driest regions on Earth**.
* 👶  In Madagascar, thousands of children work in mica mines due to extreme poverty, and efforts are being made to **eliminate child labor in the mica supply chain**.

there are more smartphones in the world than there are people, and over 25 metals are hiding in each device. We traveled across the globe from lithium-rich lands in the Andes to Indonesia's underwater tin mines to learn more about the metals powering the world's 9 billion smartphones. Scrappers in Australia have built a business removing gold from old electronics. Gold is durable and conducts electricity, so it's used to make circuit boards and cell phones. Everyone knows when Wade Collie is coming through town; family nicknames him Flash because it's red, electric, and buzzes around everywhere. Today, he's on his way to a local repair shop that puts aside devices it can't fix. They didn't really have a way of recycling things, and they really wanted to. Over the past decade, electronic waste around the world has grown by at least 60%. As of 2019, it's over 50 million metric tons of trash every year. Wade works alone breaking down tech with drills, screwdrivers, and these

actually electric garden pruners, but I have repurposed them to be able to cut through uh cable. Doing this work comes with risks, but Wade takes precautions, uh so I have to put my respirator on to take these fluorescent tubes out because if they break, they contain mercury inside of them, which is obviously poisonous. After a few minutes of work, he finally uncovers the treasure he's after. So, this is the uh main circuit board, and this is where all the gold and silver, uh is in all the little, uh black chips. Wade works to ensure that every part of a device is properly handled, even the hard-to-recycle plastic. Recovering the copper, gold, and palladium inside circuit boards is possible at massive recycling facilities, but it's expensive and requires corporations and consumers to properly dispose of their devices. Today, only about 9% of e-waste in Australia is formally collected. The US is only slightly better at 15%, so unwanted tech piles up on the curb waiting for treasure hunters to find it. All right, there's another nice.

for I envision that small recyclers and scrappers are going to continue to grow as a force both within the United States and a lot of other developed countries. Ernie Petrick is a retired Navy Captain who started scrapping in 2019. His YouTube channel, Shark Scrapper, is one of hundreds teaching people about this business. Every minute that you spend scrapping stuff down is eating away into your margin, and sometimes you might only make, uh, you know, a couple bucks an hour on something if you're just doing this as a one-person operation out of the back of your truck. You'd be better off to just go work at McDonald's. Scrapping doesn't really pay off until you can invest in heavy-duty equipment that can cost tens of thousands of dollars. When you put it on one of our shaker tables, the metals go one way and the waste goes another way. Jason Gabber comes from the world of underground mining, but now he sells crushers that can be used for e-waste.

E-Waste is going to be the richest ore of the future. For many, e-scraping remains a side hustle, but for some of the world's poorest people, it's the only way to make a living. Every year, rich countries ship thousands of tons of e-waste to places like Delhi, India, a world capital of unregulated e-waste recycling. Gzar was 14 when we talked to him in 2023. He's one of about 50,000 people who scavenge here, mostly from piles imported from countries like the United States and China. Gzar starts his morning selling breakfast at his father's food cart. After school, he heads to trash piles like this one to sort through old cell phones, computers, and video game controllers. Few people doing this work have access to gloves or other safety equipment. And to get at the valuable metals, many scavengers burn e-waste. That's a problem that experts say has long-lasting impacts on human health, including stunted growth, miscarriages, organ damage, and bone density loss. In 2021, India recycled a third of the 1.5

million metric tons of E-Waste. It produced a recycling rate about twice that of North America, but only a fraction of Indian waste was handled by authorized recyclers, not to mention the country Imports an estimated 50,000 metric tons of e-waste each year. With his business rekindle me Wes trying to prevent e-w from getting shipped overseas, it would have a really good impact globally. Instead of exporting it overseas and putting it on the less fortunate being able to take care of our own waste today. Wade's dropping off a truckload of materials he's collected at mint Innovation, a local startup that grinds circuit boards. Awesome hey wa, how's it going? Hello, good thanks for coming past. Look a nice couple of batches here you for past. Mint pays him about $3.50 per kilo, so today he made about $3,500. How much did you bring along today? Uh, one tunnel together. Typically we're going to get something like I don't know, um, 250 300 kilos of copper.

could be in there, and maybe you know anything from 100 to 200 g of gold. We'll see where we get to with that. Um, but I've got a sample here from the processor. I'll give it to you now as a down payment. Maybe you have to give it back, but Mint runs electronic waste through a liquid bath of bacteria, fungi, and other organic materials. Business Insider first visited Mint's pilot facility in New Zealand in 2021. Now the company scaled up with a facility here in Sydney, Australia that's nearly five times bigger. So this is our first plant, and what we are gearing up is being able to build these in multiple cities around the world. It's almost entirely automated, preventing workers from coming into direct contact with hazardous materials. The circuit boards heading up the two-story conveyor belt contain about 70% plastics and 30% metals like copper, silver, palladium, and gold. This machine crushes them into smaller particles, which will then be dissolved in liquid. We got a big plastic

tank behind me here. It's 25,000 L. It'll sit in this mixing tank for a few hours. After that, it'll be sent over to one of the filter presses. This blue fluid contains a high concentration of copper, tin, and other less valuable metals. Mint uses electricity to pull out the copper. We simply put that through a series of plates, pass it over that, that have electric current flowing through them, and that plates out the copper from solution. Now the solution is ready to extract the gold. That's where Mint's special sauce comes in. Mint's team identified these tiny helpers in 2017 through a series of research trips to places like abandoned mines or fields with rusty equipment. They collected species of bacteria and fungi that evolve to bond with specific metals. So you can see this residual dark purple color that's left over biomass that's got the gold stuck to it, and it's form these beautiful purple nanoparticles. The purple cake will go to an offsite refiner to be turned into something easier to

recognize, so this gold bar that I'm holding in my hands is about 1.2-1.3 kilos, and that's the amount of gold that this facility is recovering each day. It's an operation at today's prices, that's nearly $85,000 worth of gold. The company says its Sydney plant could recover more than 30 million of gold every year. Mint also says its process has a smaller environmental footprint compared to other forms of industrial recycling. What we've created is a closed-loop system where what actually leaves the plant is benign, and not a chemical waste stream. That's what helped convince Wade to process his treasures here. It feels amazing to see that my circuit boards have finally made it to the right place, and I know they're being recycled properly. And it's really cool to see it all in place now. Wade started collecting old electronics when he was just a teen. He'd store them in his mom's garage, and I'd constantly say, Throw it away, do you think there's a way of you?

know condensing this a little bit just so that we can walk get out the front door. This is a 1960s uh TV made in Australia. This was my first old laptop or piece of technology that kind of started my obsession with just anything vintage and electrical and stuff like that. Yeah, I just like to Tinker on them and um see if I can get them working again. I think it's important as a historical standpoint to keep things like this because there's getting less and less by the day of these older systems and yeah, they're actually worth far more than the gold and silver inside of them in my opinion but Wade may want to consider mining some of his own collection ever heard they don't build them like they used to well it's true starting in the late '90s many companies began using gold-plated wiring instead of solid gold to lower costs for example integrated circuits from a 1982 IBM PC now sell for about $180 a pound an apple CPU something you'd find

inside a neon iMac from 20 years later only fetches about $4 a pound. Most of the computer, uh, hardware is not that valuable. Um, there is of course going to be some gold, some copper, some platinum, some palladium, but minute amounts. Environmental activist Jim Puckett started the Basel Action Network or BAN in 1997 to monitor and stop illegal exporting of hazardous trash like e-waste. We need to think of handling our waste as a service to society because we don't want to be trashed with waste. We don't want pollution, Wade says. His business will continue to earn a modest income until he can invest in new equipment, but doing the right thing is what keeps him going. It motivates me in knowing that it's actually going to be recycled and not going to landfill, and then my hobby kind of feeds into that 'cause you know I, when I get old stuff, I quite enjoy that. So it's, yeah, it's a really good feeling job for me. Bolivia is famous for its vast deposits of lithium, which is used to

make rechargeable batteries. These are the Atacama Salt Flats, a natural wonder, one of the driest places on Earth, and a vast source of lithium. The bright squares are pools of brine where the water is left to evaporate and leave behind a mix of salts and minerals. The more yellow the pond, the higher the concentration. It can take more than 1,000 gallons of brine to produce enough lithium for just one electric car battery. Two companies control the right to operate here, American Albemarle and Chilean SQM. In 2021, Chile exported almost $1 billion worth of lithium carbonate, and satellite imagery shows just how that has transformed the landscape. It can take around 18 months for the brine to move through the series of ponds. The concentrated lithium brine is then processed into lithium carbonate, which is then taken to another factory near the coast where it is purified into battery-grade lithium. The two companies suck out enough brine to fill an Olympic swimming

pool. Every 20 minutes, they also draw 32 gallons per second of fresh water from underground aquifers for use in the processing factories. That would fill an Olympic size pool in roughly 5 hours. It's no surprise that water usage is such a sensitive issue in one of the driest regions on Earth. Central Chile has experienced a mega-drought since 2010, the region's longest on record. Brine is far denser than freshwater, and the two rarely mix, but regulators worry that pumping so much brine too fast will increase the risk of freshwater contamination. And lithium isn't the only thirsty industry here. Since the 1980s, copper mines have been responsible for around half of the region's freshwater use. The Chilean government blamed the copper and lithium industries for a 25 cm drop in the height of the water table. The copper mines plan to switch to desalinated water by 2030. Horun Skoka is concerned about the damage this use of fresh water could be

doing to the environment. He is part of the Atacama indigenous community and lives in San Pedro with his three children. In 2015, he founded an activist collective to educate people about lithium mining. Por says locals lost faith in the mining industry a long time ago. In the 1990s, the Chilean government agreed to hand ancestral lands back to indigenous communities, including the Atacama lithium mines. Some land was transferred, but crucially not the mines. Neither of the two lithium companies in Chile consulted with locals before starting their operations. At the time, they didn't need to. But in 2008, Chile's government agreed to involve indigenous people in any decision that could affect them directly. Still, it would take another 8 years for one of the companies, Albemarle, to begin giving over 32% of its profits. That same year, SQM was sued for extracting more brine than allowed. SQM recently committed to reduce brine and freshwater use and monitor their

environmental impacts. P feels there has never been real transparency. [Music] And his community's concerns almost always come back to water. [Music] But demand for lithium shows no signs of slowing down. It is the ideal metal for batteries because it is extremely light and stores energy very efficiently compared to traditional batteries. It would take around four lead acid car batteries to get the same amount of energy as one lithium battery of the same size. This makes them perfect for maximizing power without adding much weight or taking up too much space. A booming electric vehicle industry has roughly tripled lithium prices in the last 3 years, while companies scramble to ramp up production. So now all eyes are on Bolivia and its wealth of white gold. At more than 4,000 square miles, the uuni Salt Flat is over double the size of the Grand Canyon and clearly visible from space. More than 90,000 visitors come from all over the world each year to photograph the shimmering sea of salt. Antonio Cabrera moved here back in

2009. That was when Bolivia announced it would invest $900 million in the lithium industry. Antonia had high hopes that would bring jobs and prosperity. A state-controlled company built a small pilot plant, which opened in 2013, but Bolivia lacked the technical know-how to scale up. Almost a decade later, the pilot plant was only producing a few hundred tons of lithium carbonate per year, a tiny fraction of Chile's exports. For Antonia, the industry's failure to take off meant the promises of work came to nothing, and five of her six children left to find jobs in other cities. Today, she lives with her daughter and grandson. She says even the local school only has one teacher. To make things worse, the pandemic hit the tourism industry hard. Abdon Morales is also disillusioned after years of high hopes for Bolivia's lithium industry. He's an active leader for his community and lives 60 miles from the pilot plant with his daughter. It was good. He worked for the lithium company as a community liaison. Back in 2019, he was supposed to help recruit

workers locally, but in the end, he says most workers were brought in from Bolivia's large cities. Instead, now with the Chinese and Russian companies moving in, he's worried about his precious water supply. He says water levels have dropped more than 2 m over the last 2 years because of droughts. The waves Abdon is not against lithium mining; he just wants any company that comes in to extract the metal to be open and honest. If you look at Bolivia's history, you can understand why local communities might be suspicious of international interest in their natural resources. Zoom out, and you can see how for more than 500 years, silver mining has left its scars on the landscape. It was the Spanish Conquistadors of the 16th century who laid claim to what's now known to be the largest global silver deposit. An estimated 8 million enslaved miners lost their lives in the mines. Mercury, which was used to refine the silver, polluted streams and poisoned local ecosystems. These ancient mines have created untold wealth, yet the region of

poto SE remains the poorest in Bolivia. The government is nonetheless optimistic for the next chapter of its lithium story. Almost $3 billion of investment from Chinese and Russian companies will build an array of new lithium plants capable of processing an estimated 100,000 metric tons of lithium carbonate each year. The Bolivian government says that it will bring infrastructure and employment, but with the touted rewards come risks. They're gambling on a relatively new technology. It's called D or Direct Lithium Extraction. Instead of pumping brine to the surface and waiting for the water to evaporate, this method separates out the lithium using a range of filtration techniques. It can take only a few hours, but it's unclear how water or energy intensive the process will be. There are small operations testing this method in the US and Argentina, but it hasn't yet been proven to work at scale. For many Ians, this uncertainty breeds concern. We don't know what this agreement says, this agreement with the

Consortium, the Chinese Consortium says, and this is incredible because the natural resources are from us, are from all Bolivians, but we have not access with this to this agreement. The agreement is closed. [Music] Just on the outskirts of Uuni lies a stark reminder of what can happen if grand mining projects go wrong. The carcasses of over a 100 trains lie in the sun, rusting away, some dating back to the early 20th century. The town was once a transport hub linking the Pacific coast with tin and silver mines of the high plains of the Andes. The industry and the local economy collapsed after the Second World War, and the trains were left to rot. The lithium industry here will need to promise a better future than that for local communities and the environment if it is to overcome doubts that it is anything more than a mirage. Also in Bolivia, miners search for silver, which is used to make circuit boards and touch sensors for phone screens. At 13,000 ft, Potosi is one of the

highest cities on the planet. Cerro Rico or Rich Mountain towers over it. It made Potosí the wealthiest place in Latin America back in the 16th century. Today, it's one of the poorest. Luciano lives at the base of the mountain with his wife in a one-room house. There's no heat, just electricity, and a stove for cooking. Luciano is semi-retired, but to make ends meet, he still mines once or twice a week. About 40% of Potosí's residents work in mining-related jobs, and nearly half of the population lives in extreme poverty, more than three times the national average. After 10 minutes, the bus drops Luciano at the M. He stocks up on alcohol, and he buys coca leaves that give him energy. Then he buys sticks of dynamite to use later. There are nearly 500 mines in here, but many are abandoned. [Music] After entering the mine, Luciano first makes an offering to El Tío or the uncle. Some historians believe the Spanish installed statues of the devil.

to scare the workers and instill discipline. Legend has it that in 1544, an indigenous farmer called Diego Walpa discovered silver here while looking for his lost llamas. But it's the Spaniards who excavated most of it when they conquered Potosi in the 16th century. European engravings show how they forced more than 13,000 local indigenous peoples and enslaved Africans to work at the mines. Over the next 200 years, more than 40,000 tons of silver were shipped to Europe across the Spanish Empire. Silver bars and coins were used as currency, funding the army and churches. Hundreds of years later, Bolivia's state mining company, COMIBOL, took over Cerro Rico. And when the price of silver dropped drastically in the 1980s, COMIBOL handed the mountain over to the indigenous people of the region. Currently, about 16,000 miners work here. They're descendants of the same indigenous communities who toiled here centuries ago. 65 miles of tunnels connect the

[Music] Mountain. These rails were installed between the 16th and 19th centuries, and miners still use simple tools like a chisel and hammer to extract ore. [Music] Today, Luciano is chipping away at a vein of tin, which is black in color. But to find bigger pieces, he has to go deeper into the mountain's unexplored corners. For that, he needs dynamite. Luciano has to act fast since he's competing with other miners. He moves nearly 200 ft away after setting off the dynamite. Workers collect the broken rocks into sacks that can weigh up to 9. An elevator pulls the minerals up to where the mining carts [Music] are. The fatality rate inside small-scale mines like these is 90% higher than in industrialized countries. Many miners contract silicosis, a deadly lung disease caused by constant exposure to dust. Usually, after 10 years of working inside the mine, Luciano was hospitalized for over a year because of it. [Music]

Luciano is 52, but most workers don't live past the age of 40. Luckily, he gets health insurance because he's part of one of the many cooperatives that control the mines. Each Co-op has anywhere from 50 to 1,000 members, and they're all indigenous miners. Members pay mostly monthly dues and a one-time membership fee that can cost up to $11,000. Members can also hire contractors to work on their behalf. Sometimes these are other members of the mining Cooperative, but sometimes they're day laborers, and the whole group works together following, for example, one vein of zinc or copper, the mixed ore vein. The biggest benefit of cooperatives is that miners can keep whatever they find. They could make a ton of money, enough to put themselves or their kids through school. Their children will still inherit their membership in the Cooperative, but instead of actually going underground and mining themselves, they only hire out day laborers to work on their behalf. But day laborers aren't a part of

cooperatives and don't get any benefits. Only a daily wage as little as $1 us. Luciano can make about $70 on a good day mining lead, zinc or 10 these days. He rarely comes across silver, most of it was exploited by 1825. But sometimes he can find traces of it in rocks. All the minerals are dumped into pits off the side of the mountain. They're sorted and then sold to middlemen who are buyers for foreign companies. Trucks transported out of Bolivia, which is landlocked, to ports in neighboring Chile. Then the unrefined minerals are shipped overseas. In 2021, Bolivia sold nearly $1.3 billion worth of zinc. Its uses include cars, batteries, even paint and rubber. Most of it ends up in South Korea, where it's processed at factories. In addition to refining zinc, they're also able to extract indium, which is a mineral that is needed for a lot of touchscreen and um high-end technologies that is much more lucrative. The unrefined zinc that the Bolivians

export the Bolivians do not receive any money for the indm that they export. It's often treated as a flaw while mineral exports keep Bolivia afloat. Decades of excavation have destabilized S Rico. Now it's slowly sinking because of mining. At the very top, it's incredibly dangerous to be mining in the tip of the mountain because cave-ins are so increasingly common there, but it's also one of the places where there is the most remaining mineral, and so a lot of people are willing to take very high risks. In 2014, a presidential decree was passed to stop excavation above the 14,000 ft Mark, but several cooperatives did not sign the agreement. Now some experts say Soro is like a piece of Swiss cheese with many holes in it. The Cooperative miners aren't coordinating where they're going to go, what vein they're following, and so you can have a lot of structural problems that develop in the mountain when two miners are working quite close to one another, both following separate.

veins, but not leaving enough rock there to hold up the tunnel for anyone else who comes after. State mining company Kiol is in charge of keeping the mountain structurally safe, even though it doesn't own the mines. Gregorio Sooko Kuro is a technician for KI. Today he's overseeing a project funded by the Bolivian government to fortify parts of the mountain. They're pumping cement into the beak to stabilize the shaky rocks. Gregorio wants Cerro Rico to continue to be a source of pride for Bolivians, but today it is an endangered world heritage site, and the livelihoods of thousands of locals are at stake. [Music] [Music] Ever so often, Luciano visits this local cemetery. Today he's paying his respects to his late cousin Zacharias. Historians estimate about 8 million tin miners have died here from illnesses or accidents since the 16th century. Some graves here are nearly 200 years old. While Luciano relies on Ello for support in the mines here, he prays to

Jesus me. Meanwhile, Ser Rico continues to loom over the city, a source of pride, fear, and sorrow for Bolivians. Next, we head to Sri Lanka, which produces the world's purest graphite, a metal that allows batteries to charge faster. Lush rainforests surround the small village of Ntia, where Neil SES Aikara grew up. The soil here is fertile, and many people grow their own vegetables, but the main source of income is graphite mining. One of the country's oldest graphite mines, Kahatagaha, is about a mile away. This elevator is what Neil places his trust in when he goes 2,000 ft underground. There are about 12 levels in the mine. It takes Neil about 15 minutes to get to the base. Down here, it's almost 100°F. The Katagaha graphite mine is owned by the Sri Lankan government. It produces nearly 800 tons a year. The only way to extract the dep is to blast the metamorphic rocks with dynamite. Seil and his colleague Guru

desaia have to set up this firing wire and dynamite. Secure the ends with old papers. Then, Neil uses a drill to inject fluid into the walls, which helps stabilize them. They feed in the wires and dynamite and cushion them. It's important to fully seal the hole so the explosion can create an impact through the wall. They light the dynamite and move almost 1,000 ft away. Then the men collect the graphite and these carts and move it out through the elevator. But if there's a power cut, things can get dire. But there's so much more in these walls that miners can't access because their techniques and tools are nearly 150 years old. Like this small cart which can carry two workers at a time deeper into the mine. [Music] Graphite mining in Sri Lanka can be traced all the way back to the 17th century. Its first documented use was for pencils. But by the early 20th century, British colonizers were mainly using it to make bombshells and

cannonballs. Back then, there were nearly 3,000 graphite pits in the country, but demand for Sri Lanka's graphite dropped when World War II ended. Then, in 1971, the government nationalized the sector, and that led to even more neglect. Meanwhile, China started pouring resources into mining, leaving Sri Lanka in the dust. Today, there are three major graphite mines in Sri Lanka, including Kahakaha, where much of the local processing is done by hand. Women sort and cut the graphite at small workshops. The purest kind has higher levels of carbon, as much as 95%, and the women can identify it by simply looking at the texture, shine, and hardness. Currently, Sri Lanka produces about 3,000 tons of graphite a year, while China turns out nearly 850,000 tons a year. Graphite's main use these days is in lithium-ion batteries found in smartphones and laptops, and it makes up the largest part of any electric vehicle (EV) batteries. EV batteries have a positive side and a negative side, and graphite is that negative side.

mineral is highly conductive, resistant to heat, and can store energy for a long time, making it ideal for EV batteries. That industry is expected to triple from 56 billion this year to $187 billion by 2032. When you're looking at millions of vehicles being produced every year, you're going to need quite a lot of graphite to do that, to keep up with demand. China is also making synthetic or artificial graphite. Manufacturing it is more expensive and harmful to the environment. Now China is controlling who can buy this critical mineral. The government recently started requiring companies that exported to apply for a license first, and that would allow them to block some foreign buyers from countries like Japan, South Korea, and the US, which gets a third of its graphite from China. Experts say it's a power play as the two countries compete for dominance. China could use this to pressure the US on an array of political issues, from the control of Taiwan to the South China Sea. So now the US is looking into other sources, and that could be Sri Lanka's.

chance to step up. Companies like Selon Graphite are testing the material for lithium-ion batteries and have seen positive results. It's absolutely a huge opportunity for Sri Lanka to take this material, this unique natural advantage that the country has. But graphite from Kataga is mostly used to make steel and lubricants. Neil says at one point a thousand people worked here; today it's less than 60. One reason is that wages are low; miners make just 30,000 rupees a month or nearly $1100. Neil wouldn't tell us his salary, but when he clocks off from mining, another job awaits him. He also sells vegetables that he grows in his garden, while his wife prepares a traditional meal with vegetables. He helps the kids with their homework; he only finished high school, but he has bigger plans for his sons. The oldest is learning Korean and wants to study abroad. Neil hopes he can make it happen so that graphite mining is not the only option for yet another.

generation in Madagascar. Thousands work for less than a dollar a day to search for a mineral called Micah, which prevents phones from overheating. Ranat Sara lives in Anrey, a small village about 10 miles away from the mic. She started mining after her husband died two years ago to support her family. Her sister Zo is just 14 years old and she's been crawling through these tunnels since she was 12. Some tunnels can be 500 ft deep, the height of a 50-story building. In here, Micah shines through the dirt everywhere. Miners started extracting it in this region in the 1970s. Stabbing at these walls with a chisel can destabilize them and trigger landslides. The temperature inside can reach over 100° F. They also showed us their cuts and bruises from mining. Today they collected around 130 lb of Micah. They make about $3 from selling this load, and even that money has to be shared. Many families here had never worked in the mines before. They were

mostly Farmers growing rice, corn, or cava. But in the last few years, a crippling drought has hurt the agricultural industry. At least 1.6 million are now food insecure and need humanitarian assistance. It rains so rarely here that people rush to collect water like Rafar Malala Yantra's family. They used to grow crops in the town of Manaloha. Once this land where she mines officially belongs to the government, but no one stops locals from digging. There's little oxygen inside, and hammering stirs up clouds of fine micro dust. The toxic particles can cause a deadly lung disease called silicosis. Mama, even though the Ministry of Mines and Strategic Resources oversees the industry, pits often operate without permits, and miners say they have little support. We reached out to the country's Mining Ministry for comment but did not hear back. After a long day of work, Ra Mala says her whole body hurts. But just like R, she barely makes enough to get by.

miners mostly sell the raw Mica to middleman. Some of them have no idea what it's used for. They sell the Micah to companies that process it overseas. 87% of it goes from Madagascar to China. This specific type is prized for being a great insulator. That's why it's used in electrical cables, car batteries, planes, trains, and smartphones. One study shows that 15,000 different car parts could contain the mineral, and Madagascar made about $1 million in 2021 from Mica exports. But the wealth doesn't trickle down to the miners. Rafar Malala's three children, all under the age of 16, work here too. They help her sort and save the Mica once it's collected. Child labor in Madagascar is well documented, but it's dismissed as a result of extreme poverty. Often families have to bring their young kids to the mines because they can't leave them alone at home. At least 11,000 children work in the country's mining sector, but experts

say that number is probably much greater. After 4 years of drought, we saw dozens toiling away at the mines we visited in the Amber Bay Village, like 10-year-old Rasa who had to drop out of school after second grade. Child labor is not just a problem in Madagascar. Mines in India and another major exporter are also filled with children. The Mica found here is used in cosmetics for its shimmering effect, and at least 22,000 kids dig for it in India's Jarand and Beed districts. Despite the risks, families can't afford to stop working there, so nonprofits like the Responsible Mica Initiative are trying to empower them by providing education and access to better healthcare. It is also hoping to create a responsible international supply chain by trying to eliminate child labor at these mines, but that can be tricky. Many tech and auto companies buy parts containing Mica from Chinese firms that source it from different mines, so it's hard to tell whether it's ethical. Still, global demand for it is expected to grow 8% by

2030 back in anroy ran Sara and zo are heading home after an 8-hour day in the [Music] pits. She has two young daughters, so she needs this job, especially during the drought, but she hopes to go back to a life of farming one day. [Music] In Indonesia, miners free dive to collect tin from the bottom of the ocean. It's used to weld materials inside phones. Joko was born and raised in banka. [Music] About 40% of Islanders here now work in the mining industry, and Joko knows it's the best way to feed his [Music] family. The pontoons form what looks like a small floating village, but each float has its own mobile crew. Today, the water is choppy, and there are no life vests on board. All he has are these goggles and a basic snorkeling cap. Even just reaching the seabed is a challenge. Joko stays here for up to 4 hours a dive. His oxygen supply comes from an air compressor aboard the

Pontoon sometimes it can overheat and emit toxic gases into his Air Supply. Joo pulls this blue pipe along with him on the seafloor. First, he checks the sand for 10, but he has to be careful. Tin weighs more than sand, so Joko says he can tell there's tin mixed in based on how heavy this handful feels. He sends a sample up to the Pontoon through this blue tube so his crew can check for it too. When his colleagues see it, they send a signal down to Jook by bending his oxygen tube, momentarily cutting off his Air Supply. Once he knows he's found tin, his job is to keep holding the vacuum pipe firmly in that SWAT above the filtration begins. His crew places these mats on the floor of the raft to separate the tin from the sand. Since tin is heavier, it falls through these pores. The sand gets dumped back into the ocean off the back of the pontoon. Next, workers peel the mats off and bring them to these basins where they wash out.

the tin that's trapped inside the pores. Then they drain the water and scoop the ore into bowls. The whole process is loud, and it can be hard to keep tabs on Choco, who's still submerged about 60 ft beneath them. Meanwhile, the sucking action from the pipe is creating a crater in the seafloor. The deeper the hole, the higher the walls of sand, and sometimes they crumble. Joo says they've even buried his friend. Joo worries for his life too. At the bottom of the sea, the pressure is more than two times what it is on the ground, and surfacing too fast has damaged Choco's hearing. Since safety is so expensive, sometimes accidents happen. Between 2017 and 2020, an Indonesian NGO recorded 40 deaths linked to tin mining in Indonesia, but many go unreported. That's because these miners are unlicensed, which means what they're doing here is illegal. Local police go after them, but miners say they are mostly looking for bribes. 90% of the country's tin mining

territory is controlled by PT tea, a state-owned company. The government also grants licenses to small independent crews who work on pontoons. Getting those permits, though, means having a modern vacuum system that attaches to the seabed on its own and doesn't require miners like Joko to dive to the bottom of the sea. But pontoons like that cost six times more than what Joo works on. Tin mining in Banka began in the 17th century. Hundreds of years of digging has created moonlike craters on this once tropical landscape. The exposed rocks contain sulfides that react with air in water and link acids into Ban's waterways. Massive toxic lakes like these are everywhere now. 16,000 tons of tin are left on land, but PT tea estimates that about 265,000 tons are still in the ocean. So miners have moved to the sea. But offshore mining is killing fish in these waters. A local NGO found that mining at sea has damaged about 13,000 acres of

reef around the island. Locals say that 8 years ago, they could fish within a 4-mile radius of the island. Now, they have to travel at least 17 miles to see enough fish to make a living. He Tima did not respond to our requests for comment. The four men work on the pontoon for 11 hours, taking just a short break for lunch. [Music] At the end of the day, they divide the tin among themselves. Joo takes the most because his job is the riskiest, but he still makes only $13 a day. That's why he can't afford the protective gear most deep-sea divers use, like a pressurized helmet that costs around $2,000. He sells his tin on the black market to middlemen like [Music] N, who buys it for 10% below the standard rate. So, he has to refine the tin. A worker washes it again to get rid of any residual sand. Now, this is the tin. Workers then heat these metal

platforms over an open fire. Then they pour the tin onto this blazing hot surface to evaporate any residual water. [Music] When workers inhale these fumes, particles of tin can enter their lungs and over time affect their breathing. Once the tin is dried, workers gather it up into sacks, and then it's sold to smelters who extract the metal from its ore. Tin is used in everything: phones, food cans, cosmetics, paints, and even fuel. But recently, Choko has been struggling to get a good price because government regulations have made it harder to find buyers for his product, which is considered illegal. Yes, today Joko says he makes barely enough to feed his wife and four children. [Music] [Music] But he says there's enough to make him conquer any fear and his reason to get up the next day to do it all again. [Music] The Democratic Republic of the Congo is home to almost half the world's known supply of cobalt. The metal allows batteries to hold more

charge W jvier has been working in these mines for 22 years. Oh wow wow wow wowow! M and a team of three others work here. They cut chunks of or from the walls and later haul their load back up to the surface. Miners take the rocks to a local Depot where they are assessed and weighed. One D can earn between $2 and $300 a week. The price can change on a daily basis depending on the value of cobalt on the global market. He says he makes enough money to support his family. Hundreds of thousands of people work in DRC's artisanal Cobalt mining sector. Men tend to work as Miners and Traders while women find work processing the or. Clarice says this site follows strict rules but over the years human rights groups have also raised the alarm about child labor at unregulated mining sites. The 2016 Amnesty International report found thousands of children working as artisanal miners. The amnesty report really opened a lot of people's eyes to what was actually going on in the DRC and the

extent of abuses most companies had little idea about where they got their Cobalt or or what was going on some manufacturers Look To Source their Cobalt from large industrial operations instead these mines are big operations fenced off secured big big processing plants big open fit mines but these mines haven't been without their problems either satellite imagery shows how massive mining pits have consumed large parts of Ki in the south of the country another amnesty report this time focusing on large Chinese and European run mining operations in the DRC details how residents have been forced from their homes to make room for the pits in some cases residents were physically assaulted and even had their houses set on fire locals say hundreds of homes have disappeared meanwhile artisanal mining hasn't G away and many don't want it to human rights groups say that improving working conditions at these mines is a better approach than trying to outlaw them Al together and it's difficult for battery or car manufacturers to know which type of mine

the Cobalt comes from since the ores mix together at refining plants. Almost all of the drc's Cobalt ends up in China, where it has helped put around 14 million EVS on its roads, way more than Europe and the US. In fact, the DRC has a long history of foreign countries benefiting from its riches. Over 100 years ago, Belgian colonizers scoured the vast country for its mineral wealth. Later, other Western Powers relied on the country for minerals used in military aircraft. Without strategic materials, and by strategic materials, I mean ones like Cobalt, we really couldn't make a jet engine today. The metallic element is used in things like paints, Alloys, and batteries. Conventional combustion engine Vehicles don't use any. The mining boom, driven largely by EVS, has transformed the drc's economy as well. But the majority of congales people are not feeling the benefit of the country's mineral riches. Economists call it the resource curse. We've seen countries who have been blessed with natural resources that often it's Elites.

that benefit you get these booms where they're actually more destructive than beneficial. That's partly because minerals like Cobalt gain value as they move through the supply chain from ore to refined metals to batteries. It is difficult for many resource countries to have the infrastructure, the energy, the chemicals, etc., that's needed to produce processed products. Those same mines also hold copper, which helps make smartphone wires, connectors, and EV batteries. Last year, the DRC produced a record high at this open-pit site near the city of Kesi. Tens of thousands of independent artisanal miners dig out copper for just $3.50. That's less than the daily minimum wage. Meanwhile, copper prices are close to all-time highs of nearly $5 a pound. The men spend nearly 12 hours a day sifting through and filling their bags with rust-colored rocks. This raw copper will be sold to middlemen, many of whom are Chinese. In 2018, the DRC government struck a $6 billion deal with Chinese state-owned

firms, allowing them to jointly run some of the country's copper and cobalt mines. In return, Chinese investors promised to pledge $3 billion to upgrade the DRC's infrastructure. But as of 2023, one report said China had spent less than a third of that. Critics raised suspicions of corruption and a lack of transparency.

How Rare Metals Power The World’s 9 Billion Phones | Business Insider Marathon | Business Insider

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