Getting the newest smartphone can be quite appealing, with its crystal clear camera, longer lasting battery, and more storage space than ever before. Mobile phones get smarter, faster, and more dynamic with each new model. But how often do you stop to think about the many people who handle your device before you own it and after you discard it?

The start and the end of the lifecycle of technological devices connects us back to people and the planet. The ‘smart’ in smartphone comes from over 60 elements³⁹⁹ that are extracted or mined. Smartphones contain around 80% of the elements found in the periodic table⁴⁰⁰. Some of these are common metals such as copper and zinc; some are precious metals such as gold and platinum; and some are rare earth elements such as dysprosium, praseodymium, and neodymium that make features like the colorful screen, microphone and speaker. Most smartphones contain ‘conflict minerals’ which are mined in regions where their extraction contributes to violence and disruption⁴⁰¹. Mining is often associated with dangerous working conditions, pollution, draining of resources, and environmental damage. Villagers living downstream from one mine in China reported their teeth falling out and hair turning white pre-maturely due to the toxicity that resulted from the mining process.⁴⁰²

And where do smartphones go when we do not need them anymore? In countries like the US and Germany, people only keep their smartphones for two to three years⁴⁰³, even though the devices are still functional and could be used for longer. When compared to household appliances of a similar price, that’s a relatively short lifespan. The fact is that many companies pre-plan short lifespans for electronics (also known as “planned obsolescence”⁴⁰⁴) by purposely designing them to become useless, broken, or out-of-date more quickly than they need to be. With hard-to-fix machines and a mounting pile of e-waste, it can be incredibly frustrating when the choice to buy a new product is out of your hands.

Rare-earth minerals can be found in many places on Earth, but there are fewer densely concentrated reserves. For example cobalt is found in greatest quantities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Community leader and speaker, Kave Bulambo said “I come from a country that holds the largest reserves of [cobalt] and this is supposed to be good news for us, right? [...] Combined in this moment, the [DRC] supplies 70% of the world’s cobalt demand but yet we're listed as one of the poorest countries in the world. How do you correlate the greatest tech inventions with extreme poverty?”⁴⁰⁵ According to the World Bank Group, the DRC is one of the five poorest nations on Earth, with about three-quarters of people in the DRC living on less than two dollars per day. In fact, of the people living in extreme poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa, one out of every six lives in DRC.⁴⁰⁶ The cobalt supply chains in DRC are uniquely dominated by China⁴⁰⁷, while US-based tech giants such as Apple rely on DRC cobalt supplies to meet their production demands⁴⁰⁸.

Unfortunately, drawing the parallel between rare earth mineral laborers, also known as ‘artisanal miners’ in places like the DRC to experiencing what is akin to modern-day slavery is not an over-dramatization. Siddharth Kara, who focuses his over two-decades of research, lectures, and publications on modern-day slavery, human trafficking, and child labor calls it just that. He spells it out in unambiguous terms:

“[...] you have people with no alternative, no other source of income, no livelihood. Now, add to that the menace in many cases of armed forces pressuring people to dig, parents [...] bringing all their kids into these toxic pits to dig just to earn that extra fifty cents or a dollar a day, that could mean the difference between eating or not. So in the 21st century, this is modern-day slavery. It's not chattel slavery from the 18th century where you can buy and trade people and own title over a person like property. But the level of degradation, the level of exploitation is on par with old-world slavery.”⁴⁰⁹

In this particular quote, Kara was discussing cobalt mining conditions in the DRC. Major exploitation can be seen in other parts of the world when rare earth mineral mines are found and local people are living in low-income conditions or there is a major income disparity in the population, resulting in the powerful taking advantage of the vulnerable, but the DRC has some of the most well-documented reports, photos, and videos of the extreme conditions. The conditions are dangerous and inhumane for adults, working without safety equipment, barefoot and bare-handed, quickly, and in the rain or sun – but children are also working in these mines, under the same conditions. Children working 12 hours at cobalt mines in the DRC earn the equivalent of one British Pound; the youngest children (as little as four years old) earning just pennies. Concerns for the health of people exposed to cobalt are severe – tumors, infections, and one woman told Sky News “we think the mine is toxic and destroys the babies inside us.”⁴¹⁰

The afterlife of your smartphone may be in a drawer in your bedroom, or it might end up somewhere on the other side of the world. Around 62 million tons of e-waste was generated in 2022⁴¹¹. Most of this e-waste ends up in countries such as China, Ghana, Nigeria, India, Vietnam, and Pakistan⁴¹², where there are fewer environmental protections. Precious metals are sometimes dangerously or illegally extracted from the phones, but the majority of phone debris is burned by young workers, releasing toxic chemicals into the air⁴¹³.

Electronics contain some highly toxic chemicals. An average CRT computer screen contains 250-360 grams of lead. E-wastes account for 70% of our toxic waste steam⁴¹⁴. Heavy metals such as zinc and copper are found at dangerous levels in the soil and water sources of those who live near dump-sites; putting people at risk of cancer, developmental disorders, and DNA damage. For this reason, protocols exist for them to be safely discarded, but according to the UN, in 2019, under 18% of e-waste was appropriately collected and recycled⁴¹⁵.

The majority of e-waste (82%) is not collected and recycled in a formal manner, often being dumped, traded or recycled in ways which are not environmentally sound. For some countries, it is often cheaper to export e-waste than to manage it domestically. The receiving countries often do not have appropriate infrastructure in place for processing the hazardous materials. In 2019 alone, 53.6 million tons of e-waste was produced globally. That’s like throwing away 681 laptops every second. Going by our current disposal trends, this number is expected to climb to 74.7 million tons by 2030. This is a result of devices having shorter life cycles, not enough infrastructure to process the waste and lack of legislation to manage it. Keep in mind, that each year we don’t start with a clean slate, the e-waste mountain accumulates more and more.

Just because it has “waste” in its name, doesn’t mean it’s worthless. It’s estimated that the value of raw materials extracted from e-waste in 2019 alone could be worth as much as 57 billion US dollars. Large amounts of precious metals such as copper, gold and silver are disposed of in e-waste. With our current rate of recycling, at 18%, only 10 billion USD was recovered.⁴¹⁶

Researcher Adio Dinika posed provoking and compassionate questions in light of this data: “In our relentless pursuit of technological advancement, we must ask: What price are we willing to pay for our digital convenience? And in this race towards an automated future, are we leaving our humanity in the dust?”⁴¹⁷ We would further interrogate the policies in place (or rather missing) which allow such powerful multi-national systems of exploitation to thrive: How much power, independence, or autonomy are policy-makers and elected leaders willing to allow Big Tech companies to take from people, especially those who may be in more vulnerable situations? What has to happen in order for us to stop tolerating the conditions in which the tech world is operating? Although people may be walking to these jobs, we do not believe the onus should fall onto people who are working to make ends meet in impoverished and fractured systems. The onus should fall on the Big Tech companies, as well as regulators, and policy- and law-makers who allow this type of dysfunctional system to fester.

These situations may have glimmers of hope. The government of the DRC filed criminal complaints against tech giants including Apple, Google, and Tesla first in the United States⁴¹⁸ focused on child labor – but a judge threw out the case. But then the DRC popped up with another lawsuit toward Apple in France and Belgium.⁴¹⁹ The suit includes accusations that the company handles stolen goods (namely the ‘conflict minerals’) and covers up war crimes (connected to the armed rebel groups who own the mines). Furthermore, the mining conditions in the DRC are becoming more exposed and talked about. A 2022 documentary called Blood Cobalt has had over one million views on YouTube⁴²⁰ – a play on words of the 2006 film Blood Diamond⁴²¹. One 2023 video on Instagram of people digging each other out of a collapsed cobalt mine in the DRC got 170,000 views and was shared over 70,000 times.⁴²² One can hope that the more people know about the deplorable situations in which products are made, and the more difficult it becomes to avoid and ignore the monstrosities that people endure in order to extract these minerals, that eventually something will change, whether it be public perception, or purchasing habits, or transparency demands, or policy and laws, or all of the above.

³⁹⁹ Davies, Emma. “Getting the metals out of old phones.” Chemistry World, 2017.

⁴⁰⁰ Venditti, Bruno. “Visualizing the Critical Metals in a Smartphone.” Visual Capitalist, 2021.

⁴⁰¹ Brigham, Katie. “How conflict minerals make it into our phones.” CNBC, 2023.

⁴⁰² Greene, Jay. “Digging for rare earths: the mines where iPhones are born.” CNET, 2012.

⁴⁰³ Statista “U.S.: smartphones replacement cycle 2013-2027.” Accessed March 14, 2025.

⁴⁰⁴ Chung, Emily. “How to make technology greener? End planned obsolescence.” CBC, 2020.

⁴⁰⁵ Bulambo, Kave. “Why ethics must be a consideration in your tech use.” TEDxSchlossplatz, 2024.

⁴⁰⁶ World Bank Group. “Democratic Republic of Congo Overview: Development news, research, data.” 2024.

⁴⁰⁷ Gregory, Farrell; et al. “China in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: A New Dynamic in Critical Mineral Procurement.” Strategic Studies Institute, 2024.

⁴⁰⁸ Carter, Sarah. “African nation threatens Apple with legal action over alleged "blood minerals" in its gadgets.” CBS News, 2024.

⁴⁰⁹ Quote from Siddharth Kara from the article: Gross, Terry. “How 'modern-day slavery' in the Congo powers the rechargeable battery economy.” NPR, 2023.

⁴¹⁰ Sky News. “Special report: Inside the Congo cobalt mines that exploit children.” Published on YouTube, 2017.

⁴¹¹ World Health Organization (WHO). “Electronic waste (e-waste).” 2024.

⁴¹² ERI. “Why Is E-waste Being Shipped To Developing Countries?” 2017.

⁴¹³ Bradley, Laura. “E-Waste in Developing Countries Endangers Environment, Locals.” U.S. News and World Report, 2014.

⁴¹⁴ Bruun, Donald A.; et al. “The toxicological implications of e-waste.” Open Access Government, 2023.

⁴¹⁵ World Health Organization (WHO). “‘Digital dumpsites’ study highlights growing threat to children.” UN News, 2021.

⁴¹⁶ Forti, Vanessa; et al. “The Global E-waste Monitor 2020.” United Nations University (UNU)/United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), 2020.

⁴¹⁷ Dinika, Adio. “The Human Cost Of Our AI-Driven Future.” Noema, 2024.

⁴¹⁸ Devan, Cole. “Federal appeals court throws out lawsuit against Apple, Google, Tesla and other tech giants over alleged child labor in Congo.” CNN Business, 2024.

⁴¹⁹ The Africa Report. “Why is Congo taking Apple to court over conflict minerals?” 2025.

⁴²⁰ ABC News In-Depth. “Blood Cobalt.” Published on YouTube, 2022.

⁴²¹ Zwick, Edward. “Blood Diamond.” Warner Bros, 2006.

⁴²² outdoorskie. “The Brutal Side of Nature.” Published on Instagram, 2023.