Sprint Moves To Eliminate 'Blood Minerals' From Cell Phones

Velcroman1 writes "So-called 'blood diamonds' or conflict diamonds are the well-publicized face of the decades-long human rights challenge in Africa. But the mining and sale of a lesser-known but more widely used group of natural resources known as 'blood minerals' has also fueled civil wars in Congo and Uganda — and they're in the latest smartphones. Congress sought to address the issue through the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, which included a requirement for companies to disclose conflict minerals. In 2011 the SEC opened a public debate about this disclosure — but Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Washington is critical of the process. 'They are afraid of being sued by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the World Gold Council,' McDermott said. Ahead of the SEC ruling, Sprint has made baby steps to come to terms with the controversy, joining the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI) and the Public-Private Alliance for Responsible Minerals Trade (PPA), and said it is working to make device manufacturers aware of the issue. But are they doing enough?"

Comments

Hmm?

[grub]

How much iron is really in a cell phone? Oh wait...

I'll be switching to sprint, due to the effort

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I'll be switching to sprint just for the effort. For a while now I have been purchasing ethically traded products and really trying to decrease my dependence upon slave made and harvested products. (it costs a bit but if we vote with our dollars some change may occur). I also think it is better for the economy (Global and local). Because more money goes to the workers, thus more money moves around.

I may be an idiot or a sucker but at the very least I feel better about myself!

Re:I'll be switching to sprint, due to the effort

[PolygamousRanchKid]

really trying to decrease my dependence upon slave made and harvested products.

. . . I've stopped using anything from projects that I have worked on . . .

There are much better ways to resolve conflicts...

[nroets]

Trying to track down where in Africa minerals are mined will require massive spending on auditors and lawyers. Bribery and corruption is rife. A much more effective approach is to support refugees, wherever they may end up. Furthermore, population growth and AIDS are larger problems than the African civil wars. Rwanda's population is already larger that what is was before the genocide there.

Re:There are much better ways to resolve conflicts

[Anonymous Coward]

You see, the main problem I see here, is that the FBI could help! But they only work offshore if it's related to software piracy.

Re:There are much better ways to resolve conflicts

[chemicaldave]

Yeah, forget the protection of workers. Let's just compensate them. "Sorry you lost your home and your hand got cut off for not mining enough. But here's a tent!"

Re:Something for the drug kingpins to do...

[houstonbofh]

Perhaps you could elaborate: if the phone manufacturers don't make phones with blood minerals, how will you buy them from someone else?

They are not eliminating unobtanium. They are eliminating unobtanium from Pandora. So, Bob the arms dealer on Romulous sells some arms for unobtanum, and then sells it to Sprint on DS9 through Quark.

Re:I have a better idea

[I_am_Jack]

Could it be that the problem of poor leadership and exploitation in Africa is a complicated problem than can't be immediately solved by guns?

Western nations, as well as now Eastern nations (read China and Taiwan) can stay the hell out of Africa. Corruption won't occur if no one is providing the dollars, yuan, euros or any other currency with which to bribe and buy influence. We can stop looking toward the third world to provide for our standard of living, and if smart phones and other electronic devices can't be made without slave labor or exploiting workers in a developing nation to keep the price down, then perhaps it's a luxury we can do without. The same goes for oil in the Niger river delta.

Re:There are much better ways to resolve conflicts

[tlhIngan]

Trying to track down where in Africa minerals are mined will require massive spending on auditors and lawyers. Bribery and corruption is rife. A much more effective approach is to support refugees, wherever they may end up. Furthermore, population growth and AIDS are larger problems than the African civil wars. Rwanda's population is already larger that what is was before the genocide there.

Not really.

There are three minerals involved - tungsten, tantalum and tin. The electronics groups have gotten together to work on the first mineral, tantalum and have done it at the smelter scale. There are 45 smelters worldwide that process coltan into tantalum, and from there it's a lot easier.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/materials/cracking-down-on-conflict-minerals

The other two are next challenges (Tin is used for displays and touchscreens, tungsten in motors. Hrm... old style lightbulbs - conflict lightbulbs?)

http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/materials/cracking-down-on-conflict-minerals

An artificial problem

[girlintraining]

Blood diamonds are diamonds that have been mined. And up until science came up with a way to create synthetic and flawless diamonds, they were a rare and valuable natural resource. But like I said, until then. What happened after was laws were passed banning the use of synthetic diamonds in jewelry, and by 'happy' coincidence, their use in industrial process as well. Thus the distributors of diamonds in this (and other) countries could continue to command large sums of money for a rare and natural resource -- even though we now had a common and abundantly available supply via industrial process.

And so, because of the decisions of those individuals, corporations, etc., with the kind help of the majority of Congress and the authorization of the President, we helped make it possible for the exploitation of millions. We assisted in the enslavement of human beings, by trading our dollars for the fruit of those unnecessary labors. And we have allowed this to go on for as long as it has, because as long as we don't have to stare into their faces with a recognition of what they've done -- that our dollars do it for us, we can remain in ignorant or apathetic bliss.

Re:An artificial problem

[girlintraining]

I've never heard of this. Can you cite or give a proper name to the legislation?

The law was limited to certain jewelry manufacturers inducing the government to force anyone selling a diamond to disclose its manufacturing process; Specifically, whether it was created in a laboratory, or pulled out of the ground. So it was basically a labelling law (administrative), not a ban on the sale of them. But it was the catalyst for the current market -- The rest of the industry used the legislation to discredit synthetic diamonds with marketing propaganda. There are laboratories that sell a few carot diamonds, even pre-cut, at dramatically lower prices directly off their website -- but finding a jeweler to set it for you, and then later reselling it (if desired), is -- shall we say -- a difficult thing to achieve. Now, there's no citation or scientific paper I can point you to, but if you Google it yourself, you'll quickly conclude it's much more time consuming and difficult to get a lab-grown diamond set on a ring on your finger than to just order one online that was dug up using forced labor and slavery.

If the government hadn't stepped in and forced a delineation between the two products, the bottom would have fallen out of the market once new competitors entered and reduced the difference to something akin to a "Pepsi" challenge. And really, as much as you might like the taste of [favorite drink], they can't charge you twice, let alone fifty, times more, before the market shifts as people decide "almost the same" is a better purchasing choice.