Microsoft makes its first trip to a cobalt mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Microsoft made a significant move in December to formalize the artisanal cobalt mining sector in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The first time a Microsoft official visited a site like this in the Republic of the Congo was when Michele Burlington, the head of staff for technology and corporate responsibility, visited Mutoshi, an artisanal cobalt mine.
The Production of Congo Is Significantly Contributed by Artisanal Cobalt Mines
Although industrial mines provide the majority of the cobalt in the Congo, artisanal miners, who manually search for the metal, produce up to 30% of the nation’s cobalt. The production varies according to the cobalt market price.
An article calls for better mining conditions.
According to a report on Microsoft’s trip to the Mutoshi mine, businesses that utilize cobalt in their goods ought to seek to improve working conditions at artisanal mines rather than attempting to cut artisanal cobalt out of their supply chains. It is practically hard for [businesses] to entirely remove artisanal cobalt, especially when it is delivered to smelters and refiners in DRC and China, according to Dorothee Baumann Pauly, head of the Geneva Center for Business and Human Rights.
A threat to the cobalt industry’s existence
The problems associated with artisanal cobalt mining constitute a serious danger to the cobalt industry’s future. Global tech companies and automakers are lowering their usage of mined cobalt by increasing recycling and switching to lower-cobalt chemistries as customers become more aware of the possibility of hazardous working conditions and child labor in the items they purchase. For instance, Apple revealed that 13% of the cobalt in its products in 2021 comes from recycling and has set a target to dramatically reduce its usage of resources derived directly from mines.
Formalization Plan Ends Suddenly at Mutoshi
Due to the coronavirus epidemic, the formalization program at Mutoshi that had been started in 2018 by the commodities trader Trafigura and the Congo mining company Chemaf came to an abrupt halt. The research indicates that female miners are making less money than before since the mine’s diggers now operate without personal protective equipment in deep underground.