Recent Calculations Show Devastating Impact on Human Life in Congo's Cobalt Mines
In 2022, A group of Finnish researchers recently did new calculations on cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo using Social Life Cycle Assessment. SLCA is an assessment on social and economic impacts of a product or service. It identifies the social risks and opportunities associated with a product or service. Using the many different factors affecting the workers in the Congo, they can quantify the impacts on worker lives. The numbers that they computed were staggering, calculating that 1 kg of cobalt mined resulting in a collective loss of 0.014 years of human life due to disability or death. That's about 1 year off of someone's life for every 72 kg of cobalt.
Cobalt Miner holding chunk of cobalt. (Source: GettyImages)
Today, cobalt is a very important ingredient for the technology that we use every day. Cobalt is mostly used in the Lithium Ion batteries that everything from cars to our smart watches run on. EV's in particular are a heavy consumer of it, with each EV battery using anywhere from 6 to 12 kg of cobalt. According to their calculations, that's a year off of some worker's life for around 9 EVs. Also, every iPhone contains about 8 grams of cobalt inside, which doesn't sound like much, but considering how many iPhones are sold, as well as other battery powered Apple products like the disposable AirPods, the amount of cobalt needed each year by Apple quickly adds up.
The researchers set out to quantify the horrendous impact of cobalt mining in the Congo, and used many factors gathered from other studies to calculate and estimate the impact on human life. The negative factors of the Congo cobalt mines include child labor, poor health, poor safety of workers, high stress, and violent conflicts. It was assumed that the Congo paid out the promised social security of their workers and that the companies that these miners worked for provided healthcare, even if this is not a guarantee with the amount of corruption in their government. They used the computer program OpenLCA to account for all of these impacts and calculate the SLCA of cobalt mining in the Congo.
One of the reasons the calculated statistic of 0.014 years of life per kg was so high was due to the abundance of child labor in the Congo mines. Children are much more impacted by these mining operations due to them being more susceptible to the toxicity of minerals like cobalt in their system. This labor also hurts their future prospects as they are unable to attend school and earn higher wages later in life. This does not even include the ethical concerns that arise from child labor.
The researchers also ran the same numbers on mines that mine both copper and cobalt and compared it to the pure cobalt mines. The copper and cobalt mines had a much more reasonable 0.000026 years of life per kg. The researchers found that the stark difference is due to better worker safety, health, salary, and social benefits compared to the pure cobalt mines.
The researchers ultimately concluded that something needs to be done and mentioned that incentives from companies to encourage the mines to operate at better conditions may help the situation improve. However, the solution many companies are aiming for is to cut down their usage of cobalt from Congo. Tesla, for example, has reduced the cobalt content of their batteries to as little as 3%, compared to the 10% to 30% of other EV manufacturers. Apple CEO Tim Cook stated plans to use 100% recycled cobalt in their batteries by 2025. Either of these solutions are promising and could help reduce our dependence on Congolese mined cobalt.
Supporters of former war chief and ex-vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba and his party 'Mouvement de liberation du Congo' (MLC) wait in front of the party's office in Gemena, Democratic Republic of Congo, on July 30, 2018, as he is expected to return to the country after an 11-year absence ahead of December polls.
This analysis of the SCLA of cobalt mining in the Congo was part of the researchers attepts to assess whether or not the WELBY (well-being-adjusted life years) approach to SCLA was effective at conveying severity of human rights issues. Their results are inconclusive. If you are interested in learning more about the results the researchers found, a link to their article can be found here.
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