This post that I bring you today you want to make visible the situation that could be living thousands of children of certain countries in which it extracts raw materials vital to the electric cars. Although it may seem a lie and still today in some countries of the world children are used as cheap labor. They have no rights and the situation that they live in their families compels them to work in exchange for risking your life for reasons you cant even imagine.
One of these causes is the electric car. To assemble the battery that drive these models manufacturers need cobalt. This mineral is a key component of the lithium-ion batteries, which feed electric vehicles, and is used to make the electrodes of this battery type. However extract this kind of ore often requires a complicated process that in many cases is done by hand by children.
According to recent studies, provided by Amnesty International, more than half of the cobalt produced in the world comes from the mines which exist in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This fact is already relevant, but more relevant is that this high percentage 20 per cent is extracted by hand by children of between 7 and 10 years of age. This situation of child exploitation and unsanitary conditions in which it is extracted this type of mineral makes us think that maybe this kind of mobility is not as ethical or as clean.
The major brands that have opted for electric cars are General Motors, Renault-Nissan and Tesla. However, none of them has explained what type of cobalt used in batteries nor if it comes from companies that use child labor for their extraction. However the suppliers of these brands, LG Chem and Samsung SDI, yes that use cobalt extracted from the mines of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
the provider of these two large companies is china Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt (Huayou Cobalt) itself has recognized that its cobalt comes from this type of mining. Therefore, and following the chain of value, just as guilty is the provider as the final manufacturer that sells products made with questionable materials.
Having this information on hand, and under our humble point of view, we dare to give a couple of tips to brands of cars that opt for the electric mobility as a future.
- first of them, it would be this. The electrical energy is very clean and efficient to travel on our roads but if to obtain this energy we’re going to have to throw huge quantities of carbon dioxide and other particles pollutants into the atmosphere it is better to be quiet and don’t bet on it.
- second would go the other way. The first world (i.e. in which we live and to which they would go to stop these electric vehicles manufactured with raw materials sourced from child labor) can’t go on living at the expense of third parties. countries. We must think of the impact of our actions knowing that we are lucky to be where we are because of something called random chance caused us to be born where we were born. children are the future of these countries, as they are of ours, and if to sell in the first world vehicles with the latest technology “non-polluting” sacrificing the future of these children in pursuit of increase profits I hold myself back and I do not want these cars.
With this, I don’t like to raise blisters on the sector, I just want you brands to commit themselves publicly to the raw materials used along the logistics chain in their factories are made or drawn according to the rules that regulate the “Human Rights” fundamental.
Many thanks for wasting a little of your time to read this post. I hope to stir up a bit of our consciousness and serves to improve this world, our world.
Source – Amnesty International
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