Why Not to Buy a New Computer for College

The beginning of the academic year once meant new clothes, shoes,
and notebooks. These days, it increasingly means new computers, iPods,
and mobile phones. One company, Apple, is giving away a "free" iPod to
every student, faculty, and staff who buys a MacBook. The word "free"
is terribly deceptive. The human cost of mineral extraction in the
high-tech industry remains intolerable.

A report released earlier this year by Global Witness delineates how
multinational companies are pillaging natural resources and fueling
holocaust in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The organization
warns that corporations, politicians, military, and militia groups in
the Congo have plundered the country's natural wealth and used it to
enrich themselves to the detriment of the local population. The
research team conducting the report says it found evidence that the
mineral trade is far more pervasive and lucrative than previously
suspected. Global Witness, which is the same nongovernmental
organization that brought worldwide attention to the blood diamond
industry, also documented life-threatening labor conditions in the
Congo's natural resource sector.

The 110-page report, "Faced with a gun, what
can you do?'", details how companies are buying from suppliers who
trade in minerals from the warring parties. Rebels and the national
army control many mining areas in eastern DRC, violently exploiting
civilians to retain access to valuable minerals such as cassiterite
(tin ore), coltan and gold. Cassiterite and coltan are used to make
myriad electronics, including computers and mobile phones.

By buying minerals from despots, corporations have
created an illegal war economy in the Congo that is taking a grave
human toll. Johann Hari, one of the few journalists who has extensively
covered the impact of our technology-obsessed society on the people of
the Congo, wrote last year in The Independent:
"The deadliest war since Adolf Hitler marched across Europe is starting
again-and you are almost certainly carrying a blood-soaked chunk of the
slaughter in your pocket." Hari goes on to describe how the horrendous
civil war in the Congo, which has claimed over 5.4 million lives, is
fueled by our insatiable lust for new gadgets and gizmos.

Global Witness identified four main European and
Asian companies as open buyers in this blood-tainted trade: Thailand
Smelting and Refining Corp. (owned by British Amalgamated Metal Corp.),
British Afrimex, Belgian Trademet and Traxys. Other companies
scrutinized in the report include prominent electronics companies
Hewlett-Packard, Nokia, Dell and Motorola. Although these companies'
actions may technically fall within legal proscriptions, Global Witness
criticizes their lack of regulatory oversight and transparency
standards at every level of their supply chain.

Accused companies are quick to profess their innocence, blaming volatile geopolitical environments
and deep-seated ethnic strife for continuing violence in the Congo.
Other companies, such as Apple, have pegged themselves as the
ethical-consumerist option. "Protecting the environment is critical to
the conservation of precious natural resources and the continued health
of our planet," writes the company on its website. "We require Apple
suppliers using Tantalum or Tungsten, metals used in a small number of
components, to declare that the metals are not sourced from illegal
mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo." This caveat raises more
questions than it answers. What regulations prevent suppliers from
engaging in deception given the high monetary incentive to do so? How
does Apple monitor where minerals originated (metals may change hands
as many as seven times before reaching electronics companies)? Does
Apple use other minerals extracted from illegal mines in the Congo in
its Macbooks, iPods and iPhones? "It is not good enough for companies
to say they buy only from licensed exporters, when they know full well
that their middlemen buy from armed groups," Patrick Alley, Director of
Global Witness, stated in a press release.

It's difficult to believe that none of the +11
million iPods that Apple sold in its fourth fiscal quarter in 2008
alone has any trace of cobalt of other precious metals that are fueling
conflict in the Congo. If they genuinely do not, Apple should make this
information readily and transparently available on its website (as well
as respond to journalists' phone calls). While its unfair to pick on
Apple in particular, the company must be held to a higher standard
because it currently enjoys the self-branded image of a responsible
computer manufacturer. Also, Apple's new back-to-school special is
encouraging wanton consumerism by equipping students with "free" iPods
regardless of them needing one. Another reason to pressure Apple to
spearhead efforts for responsible mineral extraction is because the
company has proven receptive to public pressure in the past. Following
several campaigns (for example, Green my Apple), the company improved
its products' battery life and recharge cycles as well as removed many
toxins from its new notebook line.

Unfortunately, right now, Apple seems far more
concerned with making their product the latest status symbol for
college students than supporting an ethical-consumerist agenda. College
students should think twice before allowing electronic companies to
seduce them with yet another flashy gadget; after all, the point of
college is to understand how the world works, and our role within that
world. The tag-line for Apple's new promotion is "a Mac and an iPod
will make your college life a little easier and a lot more fun." The
company's current cavalier disposition towards the ramifications of the
high-tech industry coupled with its implicitly hedonistic
attitude-pursue convenience and fun at all costs-is the antithesis of
what a college experience should provide students, namely a sense of
social responsibility.