1996 to 2003, which killed more than 5 million people. In response, the US, EU and China have developed international trade rules that prohibit companies from extracting minerals from Congo.
But similar problems exist in other regions, such as Colombia, where illegal gold mining (rather than cocaine production) is a major source of funding for organized crime and terrorist groups.
The US has the Dodd-Frank Act , which requires companies to disclose the source of minerals used in their products. However, in 2017, the administration repealed the law, arguing that forcing companies to disclose such information was potentially unconstitutional.
While the law was in effect, Apple provided some of the most accurate reporting in the industry on its use of conflict minerals, Renner writes. However, few companies were able to fully comply with the law.
Does the iPhone contain “conflict” gold?
Apple does not publish full documentation of its supply chain. Conflict minerals reports do not include information on the origin of the gold used.
In 2015, the human rights project Responsible Sourcing Network compiled a list of 51 companies, ranking them in order of worsening reporting on the use of conflict minerals. Intel, Qualcomm, and Apple topped the list, but even these companies failed to answer the question of whether they used conflict gold from the Congo.
Another study was conducted in 2016. Scientists analyzed more than 1,300 reports on the use of conflict minerals.
They concluded that only 1%, or 13 organizations, do not use georgia number data minerals extracted from Congo (other countries were not considered in this study), and 80% of companies cannot determine the country of origin of production materials.
There are thousands of mining companies in the world, but only a few hundred metallurgical and refining plants. After smelting and refining, it is impossible to determine the origin of individual ores.
“If you check whether these companies accept conflict materials, you can significantly reduce their use in the production process.” — Yong H. Kim, author of a study on companies’ use of conflict minerals.
In 2019, Apple terminated contracts with 18 smelters and refiners because they did not meet the company’s standards for the use of conflict minerals. But because of the complexity of tracking the supply chain, conflict gold could still end up in smartphones.
Therefore, Apple decided to approach the problem from a different angle: instead of wasting effort on checking supply chains, the company turned to recycling.
At a warehouse in Austin, Texas, Apple’s Daisy robot disassembles about 200 used iPhones per hour. First, Daisy removes the battery with a blast of icy air. After removing screws and haptics, the parts are sent to a recycling facility to extract and clean the minerals.
Another interesting feature of the mask is its modularity
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