Sessions 7 & 8 (cont.) Science World
CHILD LABOR:
Children wash
cobalt ore in a
river in the DRC.
AT HOME IN THE DRC:
Cobalt dust that
gets into local homes
poses a health risk,
especially for children.
There is little safety supervision for the miners. Thirteen people died in a mine collapse in 2015. The year before, 16 miners died in a landslide, and a fire killed another 15. In addi- tion to accidents and injuries, the work carries long-term health risks. Cobalt dust, for example, can eventually cause lung disease. Child labor is also common. The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) estimated in 2012 that about 40,000 children work in the mining industry in the southern DRC, mainly in cobalt and copper mines. In 2015, researchers from two human rights organizations visited five cobalt mines and interviewed 90 workers, including 17 children. A 14-year-old described working underground at age 12, sometimes for 24-hour shifts. “I arrived in the morning and would leave the following morning,” he said. Many children work at the surface, sorting through and washing ore brought up from the mines. Ore is the raw material containing valu- able minerals, in this case cobalt. Miners collect as much cobalt ore as they can. They transport it by bicycle or bus to nearby shops. On a good day, they may make $2 or $3 for their haul. DANGEROUS DUST Miners aren’t the only ones who face health consequences as a result of cobalt extraction. Nemery and his colleagues tested the urine of people who live near mines. “We found that they have very high levels of cobalt and other
gloves, or face masks. An estimated 100,000 people mine cobalt this way in the country. “These miners go down with only rudi- mentary tools,” says Benoit Nemery, a public health researcher at the University of Leuven in Belgium who has studied the environmental and human consequences of the DRC’s mining industry. “The work is very dangerous. Accidents are common.”
HOW A LITHIUM-ION
BATTERY WORKS
Batteries convert chemical energy into electrical
energy to power devices such as smartphones.
CATHODE:
ANODE:
Negative terminal
Positive terminal that
that receives the
lithium ions flow away
lithium ions as a
from, releasing electrons
battery is used.
as a battery is used.
battery
ELECTROLYTE:
lithium
Chemical solution that lithium ions flow
ions
through to get from the anode to the
cathode. When a battery is recharging,
the ions flow in the opposite direction.
24 Sessions 7 & 8
sw-021317-swop p0tk.indb 16
1/4/17 2:14 PM
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