Fair trade Mica can solve the dangerous mica mines danger problems by funding safety upgrades!
Many short-life computers power supplies were made with cloned low quality Chinese copy-cat knock off style electrolytic capacitors that failed early or died after short use, becoming e-waste quickly.Industrial espionage by China was used to steal Japanese electrolytic capacitor factory methods & ingredients lists, but the copycat capacitor maker in China failed to do it correctly, causing the low quality cheap cloned electrolytic capacitors to leak & fail quickly.
The unfair trade of mica, a mineral used in high quality ceramic capacitors used in consumer electronics, is now the focus of toxic mining news coverage.
It is not the fault of electronics consumers that the manufacturers of electronics source raw materials from conflict mining, harmful mining, ecotoxic mining or dangerous mining in developing countries without formal mining safety practice enforcement, rules or regulations. The electronics makers keep all the profits & fail to share with the mines to upgrade the safety equipment or worker pay.
These solid-state Military-Grade capacitors use mica mineral insulator to hold the electrostatic energy, used in many motherboards, in computer power supplies, in switching power supplies, in graphics cards, in flat screen TV's and other high-quality electronics.
Mica capacitors are superior to electrolytic capacitors in high temperature applications, in high vibration applications, in harsh environments, in real world applications. In general mica capacitors last 10x longer than low quality electrolytic capacitors, important for servers used in cloud computing where the hardware used for 20 years 24/7, operating warm hot most of the time.
Peoples in developing economies are often neglected by their governments because the economy does not support advanced mining practices, the use of human protective equipment, ventilation fans, elevators or hard hats or other safety measures, equipment or best practices. It's hard to force other governments to embrace costly PPE measures in rural mining operations when they lack economic opportunities for value added activities that produce shared wealth or prosperity.
How to build an economy. Stabile infrastructure, low corruption government, broad public education and investments in infrastructure to bring electricity, water & sanitation to homes & businesses. It takes a country over 100 years of focused industrialization to bring advanced technology to mining practices, so obviously some newer countries are going to have lax mining safety standards.
Business Insider wants to blame consumers of electronics for these conflict minerals without addressing the unfair trade that does not produce enough revenue to the mica mines to enable safer practices. You do not have to feel guilty for your electronics. The greedy manufactures of electronics could share profits with the miners of the raw materials, with fair trade sourcing, like some roasting house due with coffee bean farmers.
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