Conflict Minerals: What it Takes to Make a Conflict-Free Smartphone

Sep 26, 2016 | Thomas Wilson, Bloomberg
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On a moonscaped rise in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, thousands of men and women carve a heavy, off-white mineral away from the hillside with pickaxes, then wash it with shovels in man-made streams and haul it down the hill in 110-pound sacks. They are the sort of independent miners that big companies usually chase away when they get a minerals concession in Africa. Here, the workers instead are the face of a new collaboration that allows miners and company alike to profit -- while proving to companies such as Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. that what they mine doesn’t fund armed conflict.