(slow, deliberate music)
- Today, I'm digging through an iPhone,
looking for a very particular material.
We've talked a bunch on the channel
about how different types
of minerals and metals
can end up in electronics like this one,
and where they come from in the world.
So there's gold, which conducts
electricity really well.
Lots of gold is mined in
Nevada, Colombia, and China.
Lithium of course, is found
in a lot of batteries,
and lots of lithium
comes from South America.
But the material we're
looking for is actually here.
This is a tantalum capacitor.
Or at least we think it's
a tantalum capacitor.
Apple makes it really
hard to identify parts
in our motherboard.
But we found some
schematics that pointed us
in this general area.
Looks like it's right here.
It's a component that
stores electrical charges.
Tantalum is an element
that's derived from an ore
called columbite-tantalite, or coltan.
Tantalum is highly sought
after because it's got
a very high melting point
and it resists corrosion.
We wanted to get our
eyes on this capacitor
because the tiny scrap of metal inside
has some huge implications.
It's a piece of a complex
web we've all woven
between humans, nature, and resources.
And now, in the middle of COVID-19,
this web takes on an extra resonance
because it could cause the next pandemic.
(slow, deliberate music)
That's a big claim, so
let's break it down.
A lot of coltan can be traced back
to The Democratic Republic of Congo.
Some comes from large
industrial open pit mines.
The kind of mine we're
used to seeing images of.
But most coltan actually comes
from much smaller operations.
This is often called artisanal
or subsistence mining.
It's often just people digging
holes with shovels and picks
to make a living.
Subsistence mining means
humans cutting their way
through really remote areas.
By clearing land to make way for mining,
people interact with wildlife in ways
they wouldn't otherwise.
And that's where things can get messy.
- Yeah, what we're talking
about is spillover.
- Our environment reporter
Justine has been looking into
all of this and she'll take it from here.
- So basically when humans
intermingle with wildlife,
chances increase for something
called a spillover event.
This is when a virus jumps
from one species to another.
It's how most new
infectious diseases emerge,
including COVID-19.
When one species bites, eats,
gets pooped on by another,
viruses from one species
might infect the other.
Artisanal mining offers
up a lot of opportunities
for spillover between animals and humans.
To get some specifics, I
called up Michael Nest.
- Can you hear me okay?
Can you see me okay?
- [Justine] He wrote an
entire book about coltan
and he walked me through
the details of how exactly
one spillover event could happen.
- You might not have much
of a perimeter at all
between a pit where somebody is mining
and the forest itself.
So people might go into the bush,
or rely on people who live
the forest to bring them food.
- [Justine] In this
case, food is bushmeat,
wild animals hunted, killed, and eaten.
In the DRC, bushmeat can
mean a porcupine, rat--
- [Michael] A bush pig,
or part of a gorilla.
- It's a viable way for
animal viruses to meet
their first human host.
And it happens pretty often.
One study of miners
working in the eastern DRC
found that a majority of them
relied regularly on bushmeat.
They had no alternative.
- If you are a poor mine worker
and you get the opportunity
to kill a gorilla and eat
it because it's free meat,
you're very likely to do that,
if you think you can get
away with doing that.
- And it's not just about bushmeat.
Some animals might get
drawn in closer by mining.
Bats, for example, might
take up residence in mines.
That ups the odds of a miner
getting scratched or bitten
or exposed to waste.
Other wildlife might get displaced.
They might run into new groups of animals
and those interactions mean
more chances for spillover.
- So it's not just the
access to bush food,
but it's also the very
close proximity to forest
with very little attention
paid to health infrastructure
or public health.
- So far there hasn't been
a major viral outbreak
that we can trace back to coltan mining.
But all the ingredients
for spillover are there.
It's a recipe for another pandemic.
And it has happened around other mines.
An outbreak of Marburg
killed 128 people in the DRC
between 1998 and 2000.
Marburg is a viral hemorrhagic
fever, similar to Ebola.
Most of those who died were gold miners
who probably picked up the virus from bats
or other critters in mines,
and then spread it to their families.
And in 1994,
31 people died from outbreaks of Ebola
in gold mining villages in Gabon.
Scientists suspect that
the virus could have jumped
from chimpanzees to humans.
And if you take the widest possible view,
you see that there are
hotspots all over the world
where new infectious
diseases are emerging.
In many of those cases,
it's happening where
people are clearing land
for things like mining,
logging, and agriculture.
(high pitched musical note)
Because of COVID-19,
there's been a lot of talk
about China's wet markets,
where researchers initially
thought the virus made the jump
from animals to humans.
But the journey of this phone's minerals
shows that the threat of
spillover is so much bigger
than just one scenario.
- Everybody's talking about
the wet market (indistinct).
But those just really literally
is the tip of the iceberg really.
- [Justine] Carlos
Zambrana-Torrelio is a scientist
at EcoHealth Alliance,
a nonprofit that works
to spot animal viruses
before they spill over into humans.
He says we need to think
about the connection between
our demand for electronics,
the destruction of habitats,
and the consequences.
- Pretty much every year
there's a new iPhone.
We should remember that
it's coming from somewhere
in the world.
And then there's a whole chain
that it's been affecting.
- [Justine] Since 2009,
EcoHealth Alliance,
in partnership with USAID,
found 1200 viruses in animals,
including more than 140 new Corona viruses
that could one day pose
another global threat.
They'll continue to study
the virus's behavior,
but virus behavior depends
a lot on human behavior.
There's no getting around it.
- So we need to start thinking
about the future as a whole,
as humanity, as a planet,
how we want to deal with this problem.
Do we want another
pandemic 10 years from now?
Next year?
In the 50 years from now?
- [Justine] The next pandemic
will almost certainly
come from some spillover
in a viral hotspot.
And that really shouldn't
come as a surprise.
- Usually humans, we see
ourselves outside the system.
But we are really part of the system.
The reason that we share most
of the diseases with animals
is because we are animals.
We are part of the animal kingdom.
(slow, deliberate music)
- Thanks so much for watching.
If you wanna see more of
our COVID-19 coverage,
check out theverge.com and
don't forget to subscribe.
