A new US law could cause some headaches for Apple and other hardware makers who will have to be absolutely certain that their products don't contain minerals from rebel-controlled mines in Congo.
The move is aimed at starving the rebels of funds and encouraging them to lay down their arms.
Tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold are all important parts of the technology industry. The US law doesn't ban the minerals trade with the area but it forces companies to report annually whether their products contain any of the four "conflict minerals" from Congo.
If companies find that they use minerals from any of the ten countries, they need to have an audit done to determine "with the greatest possible specificity" which mine they're from. There are legitmate mines in the Congo and the idea is to encourage companies only to buy from them.
Outfits which can prove their materials do not come from the nightmare mines of the Congo can market their goods as conflict free.
Two years ago, Intel started to alert its tantalum smelters, who turn the ore into the metal, that they will have to start certifying that their ores don't come from "conflict mines". Intel's Chuck Mulloy said that the process will add some minor costs to the supply chain.
Apple has a policy of not using conflict metals but according to the Enough Project the minerals Apple uses are smuggled to the coast and shipped to plants in China, India or a number of other countries. There, they are combined with other metals, making them harder, though not impossible, to trace.
Enough Communications Director Jonathan Hutson said that Apple was "one of the worst" suppliers.
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There is no excuse for legal non-compliance. Only shameless profiteering.
The metals in question are all fungible. That means that they're indistinguishable and can be interchanged. If the U.S. doesn't buy any 'conflicted' metals, it doesn't mean squat. We buy from South Africa and the countries who would have bought from South Africa buy from the Congo instead.
Does anyone see China caring one whit about where their metals come from?
Do something about the real problem rather than penalizing random companies in order to pretend you're doing something about the problem.
Then add the fact that these two headline firms are small potatoes when it comes to these minerals. Besides the obvious use of solder in any metalic plumbing, in every TV, radio and electronic gadget, tin is used in everyday products such as doorknobs (brass) and toothpaste (stannous fluoride). Attention to just the big-name firms is like putting a Kleenex on your exhaust pipe and claiming that helps global warming.
Once idiot comments like Rich Wargo's and XM's convince people to ignore the concern-mongering — the language of those commenters doesn't suggest they care diddly about the conflict except as a chance to bleat how much they hate Apple's success — we are left with every automobile using many times these minerals, every traditional lightbulb (as the article says), etc. The fascination with Apple's success is not just a tax on innovation, it allows these other industries to escape the spotlight of attention.
Those other industries are where the blood metals go. Since the Congolese minerals are all such a tiny fraction of the world's supplies, attention to only the high-value buyers — Apple & Intel can, and do easily afford the extra red tape — the lower-value firms that have more incentive to dodge the law, can, more easily.
And by the way: the law does not forbid use of the "bad" sources; it merely asks firms to document their sources as best they can. This means that attention is all that the law provides in the way of enforcement. Toothless when the attention is mis-directed.
So let us celebrate how Apple-bashing encourages the trade in blood minerals to go on. Nice work, fools.
Is Apple, a corporate giant, guilty of contribution? Well, SOMEONE is buying it, and I see lots and lots of iPhones.