Time to stop exaggerating the importance of ethical cobalt.This...

Time to stop exaggerating the importance of ethical cobalt.This article should be taken with a pinch of salt.
2,000,000 tons by 2020 I think not There is about 8 months to go until 2020 and we are still on an annualized output of about 120 000 tonnes.
Somewhere around 40 to 50 percent of the worlds cobalt goes to China at a guess.Do you think they will really care about child labour I dont This ünethical""cobalt will still end up in China and other countries but at a cheaper price
The next issue is how much unethical cobalt is actually produced in the Congo.Most is produced by large companies eg Glencore and is ethically done Maybe 10000 tonsis artisinal cobalt the vast majority of which is actually produced by adults not kids.Yes the conditions are not good but Africa is a hard place particularly since the end of colonialism. Artisanal mining puts them in the top 10% of earners in the country.The do gooders are wanting artisanal mining shut down because this is the only fail safe way of stopping the small percentage of child labourer cobalt that gets to the market.They do not generally have the option of the $100 per month job which would be their best alternative.Are the people who work on mines independently and their kids going to be be better off.I think not .There have to be other ways of looking at this.but in the meantime lets not get too carried away as to how important our cobalt is in global terms