1. By: Melanie Babi, Joyce Attey and Lyona Elie
Story of Coltan
By: Melanie Babi, Joyce Attey and Lyona Elie

2. What exactly is Coltan?
Do you have a cell phone? Or a laptop? Or an xbox?
Do you know how your cell phone destroys the rainforest?
Its ALL cause of Coltan
Coltan can store and release electric charge.
Coltan is an ore from which tantalum is made.
Tantalum is used in cell phones, video games and other types of electronics.

3. What are the environmental consequences?
Forest clearance to expose substrate for mining
Pollution of streams by silt from washing process;
Reduced productivity of fish stocks in lakes and rivers affected by silt pollution
Ecological changes due to loss of keystone species such as elephants and apes
Long-term changes in watershed due to rapid run-off in deforested areas

4. What are the cultural consequences?
In the Congo, where most of coltan is mined, though it provides jobs, it also provokes
Corruption, drug abuse and crime
Minerals exploitation
Mining of coltan is one of the driving forces in the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Lusting foreigners , rebels and government strip the land of its natural resources.

5. How are industries reacting to the problem?
Many nations aren’t helping out with the problems going on in the Congo.
They are benefiting from the conflict and the vast resources that many are dying over.

6. What are some solutions?
Recycle Coltan
Recycle electronics
Companies shouldn’t use the idea of planned obsolescence.
SAY NO! to perceived obsolescence.

7. Mama Doudou
Coltan miners working in the forests are in need of wives to cook their meals, carry their water and keep their beds warm at night.
Doudou Wangonda or Mama Doudou, provides prostitutes for these men for the price of a kilo of coltan. As prices for coltan rise, as do the prices for the prostitution.
Money is not the only thing that spreads. STIs like gonorrhea are quickly spread through the Mama Doudou community.
There are many economic benefits from mining but also many social and humanitarian consequences too.