Op-Ed Were the raw materials in your iPhone mined by children in inhumane conditions? – by Brian Merchant (Los Angeles Times – July 23, 2017)

http://www.latimes.com/

Brian Merchant, an editor at Motherboard, is the author of “The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone.”

Last year, I visited the sprawling mines of Cerro Rico, the “rich hill” that looms over Potosi, Bolivia. Four centuries ago, it supplied the silver that bankrolled the Spanish empire. Today, miners who work in the same tunnels as 16th century conscripted Incan laborers are providing tin for Apple products like the iPhone. It’s a powerful paradox — our most cutting-edge consumer devices are made from raw material obtained by methods barely advanced beyond colonial times.

Cerro Rico couldn’t be farther from Silicon Valley. Cigarette-scarred devil idols mark the mine entrances. Its support beams are split and cracked, and the air in the tunnels is thick with suffocating silica dust. According to a BBC report, the average lifespan of a Cerro Rico miner is 40 years. Worse, a UNICEF report found that children as young as 6 years old have worked in its tunnels.

Tin isn’t the only ingredient in an iPhone that’s obtained in ways that don’t quite match Apple’s “Supplier Code of Conduct,” which states that “all workers in our supply chain deserve a fair and ethical workplace.”

In an effort to trace the origins of the iPhone I broke one — literally — into its basest elements. Among the things that became clear: Despite Apple’s not insignificant efforts, the richest, most influential player in the technology industry isn’t doing enough to protect the workers that provide the fundamental ingredients in its products.

My project started with a rock crusher and the help of David Michaud, a mining consultant with 911 Metallurgist in British Columbia. We smashed an iPhone 6, pulverizing it, and then analyzed the resulting dust using mass spectometry, X-ray fluorescence and infrared analysis. Our efforts yielded a richly detailed list of what makes up the iPhone’s 129-grams.

For the rest of this article: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-merchant-iphone-supplychain-20170723-story.html