critical commodities make us mobile, make our smartphones smart. how can today's global hunger for lithium cobalt and more? the satisfied me lou people to us. mm. that's why we lose stories. reporter every weekend on d. w. a . know what the batteries,

smartphones, and even cosmetics have in common, right? they all contain silicon, rare earth methods, lithium, and other such elements. yes, they do even cosmetics. but the bigger issue is, in most places, these elements are not readily available and mining them often homes. the environment. so today we look at the race for critical raw materials or come to mate. now here's something to note down june. the 12th is the united nations well today against child labor. today, almost $1.10 of all children worldwide are engaged in child labor. and often they work in hazardous environments like mining kinds of raw materials we need to keep up our way of life. micah is a group of minerals, houston, electronics, pains, and cosmetics. not only does it add an attractive shimmer to cosmetics, it's also a good conductor of heat and an electrical insulator. but very often,

children are involved in mining it. ah, gum al debbie and her 5 year old son ron jew turned the earth in such a micah, the glittering mineral plays a vital role in this region's economy. for many people mining, the raw material is the only way to survive. children working for hours in the blistering sun in the indian state of georgia, and it's nothing out of the ordinary. so that's what i let della glad, i think my children are so young, but there's no other way of making a living here. there's no farming, nothing that i can't afford to send them to school. i was they have to help me had that though, but they managed to to 2 and a half. she was a day that we work until 5 in the evening. was it that they used to be more than 700 official micah mines in northern india, but in 1980, a new law came into force banning deforestation that made it almost impossible to

access new sources of the mineral, but companies left, but the mines remained to day some 50000 adults and children worker illegally. almost all the workers are darling to occupy the lowest rung in the indian cast system. many a members of indigenous tribes who are socially marginalized because there is little in the way of industry in the area. people are reliant on the minds. a kilogram of my car can bring up to the equivalent of 20 euro cents, but often they receive just half of that. middleman clean the mineral enlarge filter drums, the platelets are then count into varying sizes. this is how it enters the market. the word micah describes a group of naturally occurring silicate materials that are rigid, yet at the same time, elastic world. many industries use the mineral in huge quantities among them,

the cosmetic sector. a few years ago anna maria jaeger and her husband chi, founded their company lethal cosmetics. the ag, stressed that all the ingredients, the firm uses of egan and ethically sourced. in other words, they guarantee no animal testing was involved in production and no child labor. one of the key raw materials lethal cosmetics uses is micah, some of it comes from india. here we have 3 different types of mica and a deserve. i example of a sparkly version and which also has a jo, comedic effect to it. and what is great about, as i said, it's face barclay, but it's completely natural. so it's free from any plastics. lawyers can't imagine making their cosmetics without micah. that's why they decided

to hand pick their supplier in india. they chose a distributor who was able to provide assurances that his micah only comes from minds that don't use child labor. although in the sector, it's often difficult to determine where the material originated with our suppliers is one supplier that often the manufacturer that also works directly with the minds that also of the audits of the minds that has been independently audited as well. and that is where we gain that confidence. mike is used in a wide range of applications. the biggest buyer in 2015 in terms of market value was the electronics industry, followed by companies that added the mineral to paints. and like, as mike also finds widespread use in the construction industry and of course it plays an important role in the cosmetic sector.

every day command debbie and her son toil away to help satisfy the global hunger. for micah, they never have any problem selling what they've collected to one of many traders. if they receive a $150.00 rupees, a little under 2 euros, then it's a good day. she says, that's enough to buy some vegetables and rice. but for that, everyone has to pitch in, including both her daughter's aged $7.00 and $9.00. what was it i'd like to know? i'm always afraid when i'm working that i'll be bitten by insects or snakes or that i'll fall into a pit. oh, it's clump. i never mind, i'd really like to go to school that we need money. we don't even have our own house. so i have to collect micah and unambiguous law has been in place in india since 2016. no child under the age of 14 is allowed to work, but the government itself concedes that around 12000000 children and young people are doing just that. aid organization's estimate there are around $44000000.00

child labor. as in india, it's thought that around 22000 children are working in illegal mines in the states of john kind and b ha. many of them have never known a life without work. because of their size, they're offer made to crawl into freshly dug unsecured pants and shafts. oh, i mean i'm always afraid when i'm looking for micah. oh, not long ago over there, 2 or 3 children of my age were buried in one of the shafts. and they died like that . i want to go to school. i don't want this job. mm hm. for companies that work with micah products, it's

a perpetual balancing act between marketing and morals, business and conscience at lethal cosmetics in berlin. the yag is a trying to tackle the issue head on wherever possible. they want to know exactly where they have all materials are coming from. they also don't try to conceal from that customers that they use mighta entire regions of india that are financially dependent on micah. and so if you replace something, for example, something with synthetic, you basically taking away their livelihood. so i think it's absolutely within our responsibility, of course, it's also within the responsibility of everybody in the chain to make sure that it's producing ethically as well. the cosmetics industry is very secretive when it comes to micah 2017 saw the launch of the responsible micah initiative, an alliance of companies obtaining micah from india. they all say they have a clear goal to end child labor in the mines by 2022. but an interview on the subject, a camera. well,

all are requests including those sent to big industry names like mag. the clarence group and a couple of shea were turned down. if you ask the miners ajar and how to solve the problem, they say genuine change can only come if mining is once again officially allowed. because that's the only way to offer workers clear safety standards and a fair wage. then their children wouldn't have to work. some politicians have been demanding the reintroduction of official mining for a long time. no, i did not mean my good as you can see that all the labourers here are giving their sweat and blood on their breaking their bones did. but what kind of life is this not you forget like, is it a government? can't just look the other way about him? don't we deserve better than this? we dealt with that. got it. when it and all this toil so that the rest of the world can use not only cosmetics, but also devices like smartphones,

a couldn't exist without rare earth. they used to create the vibration, for example, and to display vivid colors. so ratliff elements are in huge demand worldwide, but reserves are finite. did you know there is gold in your smartphone? but don't go smashing it with a hammer. it's just a tiny amount of fraction of a ground, but still with your device also contains 16 of the 17 rare earth elements. they are what makes the smartphone smart. for example, new damien, disposing them and praise your damien, make it vibrate and trivial. produces of vivid colors and the display around half of the world's population now has a smartphone. and with the number growing rapidly demand for rare earths is set to

rise. the good news is that rare earth orange in fact all that where the bad news is that mining them is difficult and bag for the environment and reserves are finite. the supplier somewhere herbs could be exhausted in just a few decades. so what can we do about it? well, you could keep your smartphone for longer. and when you do get a new one, have the old one recycled. oh, wow, my smartphone is sir. hold on. yes. i think i think it is 8 or 9 years old. wow. guess in terms of the environment i'm doing pretty good. if using a device that runs on lithium ion battery really is environmentally friendly. i know that those batteries are crucial for the car industry to move away from fossil fuels. electron mobility is the buzzword that how green are these batteries really?

and what happens to them after they've been used? let's find out. ah, in 2019 john. good enough, stanley, whittingham, and kiera. you see no, jointly won the nobel prize and chemistry. the discovery, please out, lloyd, it's have led to a dramatic change in our society. they invented and developed a technology that most of us use every day, often without even noticing. it's in a earbuds, smartphones, laptop, computers, countless vacuum cleaners, and electric scooters. it's this the lithium ion battery. this technology is key to us driving around without burning fossil fuels. but what does it take to make all these batteries? what do we do with them once they're spent? and why on earth are we playing with lego?

in this video, let's find out. oh, the automobile has brought comfort and independence to the lives of billions of people. but guzzling, ever growing amounts of fossil fuels has also taken its toll on the climate. we have an energy, gra, thanks to lithium ion battery. we might now be entering a new iraq mobility because of the high energy density that perfect and electric vehicles for a relatively tiny package they pack of big punch. lithium ion battery has really enable many paul solve the i mean de compensation. this is house eric melon, he founded a research and consulting firm focusing on lithium ion batteries. if i ever thing in mobility, lithium ion battery is i would say they have been a key technology or really the potential is so big in that sector we,

we get some such a scale in the, in the production. and that brings the cost down of the batter is the global fleet of electric vehicles is predicted to grow immensely over the next decade, from around $8000000.00 to $116000000.00. this means the demand for lithium ion batteries will also shoot up, and this is where we might run into some problems. of course, it has the cost. we need materials to produce a battery sent in any extract of industry has an impact on the environment. lithium is, as you probably guessed, pretty central to making the lithium ion battery. about 50 percent of the world's reserve of this alkaline metal can be found here. and the so called lithium triangle across argentina, bolivia, and chilly mining. it involves pumping saltwater from underground lakes into pools and letting it evaporate. a process that could harm the surrounding soil,

drained water supplies, and contaminate the air. also, lithium is finite. the study found we could run into serious trouble by mid century . if demand keeps growing like this, then there's cobalt that also goes into lithium ion batteries. it's a metal mainly found the democratic republic of the congo. it's mining has often been linked to inhumane working conditions and child labor people exposed to it have suffered from lung disease or heart problems. then you have also the energy that is required to make batteries. and especially production of cells require la vantage. and this means c o 2 emissions. how much exactly really depends on the electricity mix of the producing country. but according to recent figures, making just a small battery for college. this could cause more than 4 tons of c o 2. to give you an idea that's like driving a new diesel cargo in the you for about 33000 kilometers. the good news is that

emissions are thinking as battery production becomes more efficient and we shift towards clean energy sources. so the bad news is that the batteries are losing capacity over time. so as there are more and more e v 's, there will also be more and more spent batteries. how do we deal with them? they should be connected and certain recombined, and we used in different countries as in did my application. this is ada kong. she's worked on a report about this for greenpeace east asia. the battery is that it can be used in electric vehicles. essentially it is per powerful when they're used for like 5 or 8 years that couldn't really matter. that needs a car. did you have enough performance for a function? that's right. we can give spend car batteries a 2nd life, for example, that can be turned into energy storage for windows so long. they could also power you next camping trip, and they still have enough juice left to drive a forklift or a boat and discarded. if the batteries are already used for all these things. today

. we should extend a manual and i stand off that materials by reusing hasta, using up a regional function of products. they could be recycled to a tiers and to produce more products. let's get out the lego to understand how lithium ion batteries get recycled. it often involves smelting, so essentially heating them until they melt. but this uses lots and lots of energy, creates toxic emissions and loses some of the materials. and that's why companies are coming up with new ways to recycle. you want to have as much as we can with high value materials that are, have taken a lot of effort to get out of the ground. we want to use those carefully. and as many we can, this is cornell fell, fha, chief commercial officer, lie cycle, a lithium ion battery recycling company from canada,

which we basically come up with a process designed specifically for this to have high recovery rates of the material. in the 1st stage, what we call or spoke is a mechanical process that breaks down the batteries and separate some of the fundamental materials. very, very simply speaking, this is what happens. the batteries are shredded while being submerged in a non toxic solution. this is important because it prevents them from catching fire ends in the worst case, blowing up then materials like plastic, copper, and aluminum, separated from what the industry called the black mass. this contains the valuable materials, like cobalt, nicole and lithium. the 2nd half part of the process is the hub, and this is really a bespoke hydro, metallurgy or wet chemistry process to process black mass into battery materials. what this means is that different chemicals get added to the black mass, which niche al different elements. these chemicals either make their way into the

final product or re used in the process. so this actually doesn't produce any waste water. you end up with a black mass separated into a single components like lithium, cobalt and nickel. so that the end goal is that as we pull them out of the batteries, we're putting them back into new batteries and that hasn't been, she been achieved yet at a high scale there's, there's elements of it around the world, but we want to help to continue to try that forward, it is hard to keep track exactly how many lithium ion batteries already get recycled mainly because they're often exported. but it is already happening more and more especially in asia where most of them are also produced. and as volumes of spent batteries grow, it will make even more financial sense to recycle them. this is i do with

material safety, already produced, used indefinitely. the lithium ion battery, already one of the most of the product is already reuse today, and ultimately it's all recycled. we can optimize, is it better and better and the more we have on the market as the more old. so that will be now the corona virus condemning has shown how dependent europe is owned, raw materials from other parts of the world lock downs in asia, and border closures cost massive disruptions and the global supply chain. forcing manufacturers to slow up even hold production. a team of geologist is now working to find rule materials like lithium rare earth and graphite in northern europe, to allow the you to be less dependent on others. in particular, china, a team of geologists, in no way get to work. they've been commissioned by

a company called north mining to search for critical materials right here in northern europe. first, they need to take samples. lines is really nice, made it here, because you can see like the thickness of them is pretty good for door. we're looking back at the research camp. the team examines hundreds of draws samples every month we can face some of the mineralization. here is the specifically more my big brands that we're looking at, which is where the higher grade mineralization is. obviously, titanium canadian and phosphorus that we're looking at because there's extra phosphorus is an essential rule material used in fertilizer. the launch deposits of the name, on the other hand, can be used in huge batteries that store energy within electrical power grid.

both elements are considered critical materials, along with a range of others, such as lithium rats or graphite. but where does the term critical material come from? a question we put to the founder of the mining company, critical materials. these terminology, which is basically comes from europe, has been invented by the u because the europeans are dependent on to today as so as the glow, particularly from supply from china. and which is about 606062 percent. china is the number one producer of critical val, materials. in the case of rare earth, china provides more than 80 percent of global supply and processes the largest and mind reserves. les cobalt, lithium, copper, and nichol. here, china has secured strategic supply commitments from other countries to gain

a monopoly. these materials are important for renewable energies which are needed to stop global warming. so right now, achieve in global climate goals depends on chinese raw materials. take lithium mining, like here in california, lithium is used in batteries for electric cars. here to china dominates the market . electric cars, wind and solar energy, all require a huge amount of critical materials. by 2040 lithium consumption is expected to be $42.00 times what it is now. the use of graphite cobalt and nickel rules increase massively. busy while rare earth's will be consumed at 7 times, the current rate hover is another critical val. material that's in high demand. owing to its use in electric vehicles and generators. china recognized the signs of the times early on. now,

europe is playing catch up. green a digital technologies currently depend on a number of scarce raw materials. we import, lithium for electric cars, platinum, to produce clean hydrogen, silicon metal, for solar panels, 98 percent of the rare earth elements we need come from single supplier china. this is why we have proposed to create a european raw materials alliance. oh, the e u has committed to reducing its carbon emissions by 60 percent over the next 2 decades. oh, so a europe wide consortium of companies with headquarters in berlin has been charged with a facing the issue of all materials. ah, you can relatives alliance as one mandate tests of the mandate to protect euro from

any kind of supply interruption of raw materials. and in particular critical raw materials and in this context, of course, our oldest 1st and foremost understanding the pattern and the mix of romance units . and here the role is identifying respect of companies that have the willingness and the capability to invest into raw material topics that can help closing the gap that we were just talking about. it will likely take 10 to 35000000000 euros of investment to mind the necessary role materials. so companies like nor to mining that are funding themselves are especially welcome to me. if you'll find a good project, you have the investors at hand. and it's, you know, it is very intriguing will be doing, it's very excited because it's not only a mining project such, it has become a geopolitical into geostrategic thing. but it often takes up to 20 years to build

in mind, starting from the initial phase of exploration. north mining says it already has enough funding from investors and hopes to stop mining much sooner for the european union. it can't come soon enough. that's all for this edition of mate. thanks for watching. stay safe with ah ah

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