Apple Celebrated for Clean Mineral Efforts

[Michael Essany]

Although no shortage of environmental groups and green-tech advocates continue to fault Apple for what they believe are the tech giant's consistent shortcomings in the pro-green technology movement, Apple is receiving high praise in one area of its operation today.

Apple - along with Hewlett-Packard and Intel - are being hailed as pioneers of progress for using clear minerals that don't fund armed groups in Central Africa. The Enough Project, as summarized by the AP, ranked companies in terms of the steps they have taken to ensure that their mobile devices aren't indirectly helping to pay for the weapons used to murder and terrorize Congolese civilians.

As it turns out, Congo houses 70 percent of the world’s supply of tantalum, which is used in cellphone manufacturing. Congo also contains massive amounts of tin, gold, copper and cobalt.

Armed groups vying for control of these riches have used profits from illegal mining to purchase weapons used in gruesome attacks on civilians. In other cases, they have captured people and forced them to do the digging.

"The exploitation of Congo’s mineral resources continues to exacerbate conflict and instability on the ground and consumers are still largely in the dark as to whether or not their products are conflict free," the new report reads.

The Enough Project maintains that it's goal isn't necessarily to urge companies to stop purchasing minerals from the countries where conflict continues, but rather to inform them about what's taking place and, consequently, to make informed decisions in the future.

Source: AP

[n00neimp0rtant]

Just came here to say that I think the fact this article exists represents the ridiculous worship this billion dollar corporation has gotten for making a cell phone. It's a cult praising every business decision they make and demonizing everyone who disagrees and frankly the obsession this community has is sickening. I follow the RSS feed so I can hear about new tweaks without refreshing my sources. I don't follow the feed with the intent of giving a damn about what environmental experts think of their business practices or what evil IPhone ripoff Samsung is birthing this week.

[rcm]

Just came here to say that I think the fact this article exists represents the ridiculous worship this billion dollar corporation has gotten for making a cell phone. It's a cult praising every business decision they make and demonizing everyone who disagrees and frankly the obsession this community has is sickening. I follow the RSS feed so I can hear about new tweaks without refreshing my sources. I don't follow the feed with the intent of giving a damn about what environmental experts think of their business practices or what evil IPhone ripoff Samsung is birthing this week.

what do you expect, this site was built for the mere purpose of customizing your iphone but now days an actual useful tweak comes along once a month so this is just a filler article to have new on the page.

[bigboyz]

Yeah, I get a bit aggrivated with the Apple worship articles. Need more mod articles. Steve Jobs house getting broken into is not modding haha!

[rcm]

before when he was still alive people would get exited when something got robbed from the house because people would think it was an ipod or iphone prototype, now is just sad.