Environmental Impact of Mining in Congo

This is 1 6 grams of dust.

This is the amount of dust that

the children in Koloesi breathe in five years.

Because around Koloesi, in the Democratic Republic of Congo,

there are copper and cobalt who are needed for our energy transition.

Every phone, laptop, car, solar panel, windmills depend

on the copper and cobalt extracted in the Ktanga region in the south of Congo.

There is a school called Galaxy,

where there are 1 700 children studying there every day.

And the level of pollution in the air is twice

as the level that in Europe forced government to shut down entire cities.

Children who live there, by the age of five,

they have breathed this amount of dust.

This amount when they turn 10.

And all of this in their lungs while they turn 15.

And when they finally end with their school,

this is the amount

of dust that has deposited and accumulated in their lungs.

For example, this is a filter connected to a pump that simulates the lungs.

And this is how it looks like after eight hours of recording. I'm Flaviano

Bianchini, and I'm the founder and the director of Source International,

an organization that collects

scientific evidence to defend communities affected by environmental crime,

exactly like Koloesi in Congo.

At the moment, we are keeping our cities nice and clean

by polluting people in Koloesi.

The cost of the energy transition is paid by someone else.

And at just energy transition,

no one should pay for our clean air. We are Source International.

We do this kind of investigation here and all over the world.

If you want to be part of it, follow us.