Review of publicly available academic, industry, and NGO research as well as first-hand personal accounts of the impacts of cobalt mining and processing.

Summary:

• Mining—by its very nature—happens outside in the environment itself, with ore located in places not chosen by humans but rather dictated by the planet’s formation processes. Its sustainability impacts will unavoidably get worse over time as the digging for more minerals continues

• Cobalt’s unique usefulness in rechargeable batteries and other industrial applications have not yet lent it to cost-viable substitution, leading to a significant increase in demand over recent years for applications such as electric vehicles

• Cobalt is almost exclusively a by-product of copper and nickel mining, and as more than 50% mining is in the Central African Copperbelt, primarily the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC); this creates significant supply risks

• One cannot tell the story of the mining and processing of cobalt without discussing the challenges of small-scale mining and child labor in the DRC; a complex situation which isn’t necessarily best addressed (environmentally or socially) by boycotting cobalt from that region

• The parts of the DRC involved in mining are also considered one of the top ten most polluted areas in the world as a result of the discharge of pollutants from mines and smelters, but other cobalt mines in the world also have had environmental issues, too. Especially in the DRC, this pollution has had significant negative impacts on human health, including children

• While the exact calculations for one company’s products would depend on the various processes involved, the academic literature has found overall that cobalt recycling is more efficient with respect to pollutant burdens than virgin metal production, and in most cases substantially so