Some people online are sharing that they’re quitting vaping, but it doesn’t stem from concerns for their health. (Courtesy: Dorothée Baumann-Pauly and @itskristinamf/TikTok)
Some people online are sharing that they’re quitting vaping, but it doesn’t stem from concerns for their health.
People are speaking up and speaking loud throughout various social media platforms responding to what’s happening to people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
People are learning online there’s exploitation of Congolese people in cobalt mining, a chemical element found in vaping products.
Social media users have since expressed that they’re feeling uncomfortable now using their vape.
“The only thing I’ve been thinking of that I genuinely buy all the time is my vape and my vape has cobalt in it. My vape literally has the thing that they mine in it,” the TikTok user said.
“But there’s literally a silent genocide happening in Congo right now. And it’s from my vape, it’s from my phone, it’s from my TV, it’s from electric cars, it’s from Tesla. It’s from all these f**king things and I’m genuinely disgusted,” she added.
People in the comments reacted, “I could never quit because I don’t want to, but for Congo I will,” one user said.
“So many people would never even think about this, it’s crazy. We gotta do what we can to save Congo,” another user commented.
Smartphones, computers and electric vehicles use rechargeable batteries and are frequently powered by cobalt, according to Siddharth Kara, an expert on cobalt mining in the DRC told NPR.
“Cobalt is toxic to touch and breath – and there are hundreds of thousands of poor Congolese people touching and breathing it day in and day out. Young mothers with babies strapped to their backs, all breathing in this toxic cobalt dust,” Kara said.
It is also estimated that as many as 40,000 children work within cobalt mines in the DRC, according to a report by Lexology.
With more people in the western world bringing this to light, they’re taking things into their own hands and giving up on vaping as a way to not support what’s happening in the DRC.
Miners are often not given personal protective equipment and work in hazardous conditions for the equivalent of just one or two dollars a day, Kara added.
A user on X reacted, “On the bright side, there’s a whole new movement of people quitting vaping for Congo now, since people started finding out about the exploitation of children/workers in Congo for cobalt.”
What are your thoughts about this movement to bring awareness to Congo? Do you think the world is finally paying attention?
