Last year I produced an article on Coltan and Conflict Minerals & The Congo which detailed how companies exploiting the country of the so-called “conflict minerals” is fueling the war in the country.

Coltan is a metalic ore that has unique properties of storing an electrical charge and is used in a vast array of electrical products from mobile phones, laptops & digital cameras to jet engines & hearing aids. It is being mined in large amounts out of the Congo and smuggled out of the country and used in many electricals of all major companies. The companies claim they cannot track the source of the Coltan in many of their products as the components are made by many other companies.

Towards the end of the article I suggested ways in which we can stop this illegal mining occuring. Now due to a crowd sourcing project Fairphone have produced the first mobile phone with a transparent supply chain. Its possible to find out out where the minerals were sourced and where the components were assembled and the phone is cool as fuck

10,000 of the 20,000 phones have been sold so far. For more details check the Fairphone site and see the video below

Fairphone: Buy a phone, start a movement from Fairphone on Vimeo.