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Coltan using company

The companies that buys coltan from Congo are

Cabot Corporation, Boston, MA
OM Group, Cleveland, Ohio
AVX, Myrtle Beach, SC
Eagle Wings Resources International, Ohio
Trinitech International, Ohio
Kemet Electronics Corporation, Greenville, SC
Vishay Sprague. Malvern, PA

Corporations from other countries have been a part of the coltan exploitation chain. These companies include but are not limited to Germany's HC Starc and EPCOS, China's Nigncxia, and Belgium's George Forrest International.

Once the coltan is processed and converted to capacitors, it is then sold to companies such as Nokia, Motorola, Compaq, Alcatel, Dell, Hewlett-Packard , IBM, Lucent, Ericsson and Sony for use in a wide assortment of everyday products ranging from cell phones to computer chips and game consoles.

Some of the use of the coltan by this companies are

• Laptop computers
• Cellular phones
• Jet engines
• Rockets
• Cutting tools
• Camera lenses
• X-ray film
• Ink jet printers
• Hearing aids
• Pacemakers
• Airbag protection systems
• Ignition and motor control modules, GPS, ABS systems in automobiles
• Game consoles such as playstation, xbox and nintendo
• Video cameras
• Digital still cameras
• Sputtering targets
• Chemical process equipment
• Cathodic protection systems for steel structures such as bridges, water tanks
• Prosthetic devices for humans – hips, plates in the skull, also mesh to repair bone removed after damage by cancer
• Suture clips
• Corrosion resistant fasteners, screws, nuts, bolts
• High temperature furnace parts.
• High temperature alloys for air and land based turbines 

Coltan In congo

                                  What is Coltan?

Coltan is mined by hand in the Congo by groups of people digging sinks in streams by scrapping off the surface mud. The area that coltan is mined in is where the mountain gorillas live. To make mining easier for the workers, they cleared the land which caused the gorillas population to reduce by half.  Another reason for mining for coltan is to fund everyone that is involved with a civil war that occurred. A team can "mine" one kilo of Coltan per day.

Some facts:

The tech boom caused the price of Coltan to rocket to as high as US$600 per kilogram at one point, compared to a previous value of US$65 per kilogram, although it has settled down to around US$100 per kilogram at the moment. A Coltan miner can earn as much as US$200 per month, compared to a typical salary of US$10 per month for the average Congolese worker.

80% of the world's known coltan supply is in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which the UN says is subject to "highly organized and systematic exploitation." 

Since the use electronics has increased in developed places like here the price for coltan has increased by $500/lb. the free market attempted to correct supply and demand but because of this, severe environmental and human costs occurred.

One place where coltan is found is Kahuzi Biega National Park. In 2001 over 10 000 people moved to mining camps to earn money. Child labor is used for coltan mining, these kids leave school.

What happens to the minerals?

Almost none of Coltan is exported by Congo, most of them are actually sneaked across the border of Uganda and Rwanda. Here they are exported to the far east and are very difficult to trace the origin of the metals.

Who earns money from this?

The war lords and army commanders make money so that they can buy more weapons and ammunition to sustain control of the people.

How does this affect the people of Congo?

Workers in Congo don’t benefit from this and it is one of the poorest countries in the world. However, it is the richest in resources.

What are the conditions of the Congolese workers?

D.R.C Invasion:

Rwanda and Uganda invaded the D.R.C in August 98’.  The main motivation for this invasion was to gain control of the great quantity of natural resources the country was found out to collect. Uganda and Rwanda played a major role in the creation of the Rally for Congolese Democracy, these rebel groups were motivated more by economic reasons. Recognizing that the official defense budgets of both Rwanda and Uganda doesn’t cover the cost of the conflict, Paul Kagame, the President of Rwanda, describes the war as “self financing,” This financing he is referring to permitted the mining of coltan.  The amount of fighting that actually happened between Rwanda and Uganda themselves had increased in the “coltan belt.” This means an extending of land rich in the mineral, in the eastern D.R.C.  

Because of the fighting it has caused, entire community devastation, an area with a major loss in biodiversity.

If you were to compare the immense profit made by electronic companies such as Sony miners were very poorly paid and rewarded for their effort to complete their work. Also, rising consumer demand for fancy electronics in developed nations got worse on environmental inequalities for the people of the D.R.C.

                          

Establishment of the Conflict Minerals Policy

http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/csr_report/sourcing/materials/hotline.html