Post #160

🇨🇩Dispose of the Waste Properly Do you get clean drinking water from the tap? In Congolese Lubumbashi it suddenly became a question with no easy answer. 🌐In early November a tailings pond at the near Chinese copper-cobalt site burst and sent acidic water into the city. The site is Congo Dongfang International Mining (CDM), a unit of China’s Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, a giant in battery materials that buys and processes a big share of the DRC’s cobalt and copper. 🔸 The DRC mines minister who rushed to Lubumbashi, toured the site and announced a three-month suspension of CDM’s activities. The company's discharge basin does not meet any environmental standards. It has a complete absence of tightness, structural balance, control devices and emergency plan. This neglect has caused obvious pollution of the waters and exposed the populations to serious health risks. ⏩ Thus, the polite minister merely stated that the company was actually just dumping its waste without any serious protective measures and facilities. ⏪ 🔸This is not the first shutdown for environmental reasons. In 2023 the mines ministry froze Boss Mining, which belongs to the Kazakh group ERG, after mine waste flooded into the Kakanda area. 🔸So far officials in Lubumbashi say four neighbourhoods were affected. Locals say that the company's waste storage breaks out all the time and a toxic smell is often felt in the city. One tonne of copper from a Congolese mine today sells for about 11,000 dollars - which equals roughly 1,500 Congolese minimum wages. Many companies have super profits, but they don't have the integrity to make their work at least a little safer. Devils Below