Agreed, this setup is definitely not ideal. If it was me, it would get put on my to-do list of things that need done, and then it would sit at the bottom of that last and never get done because other stuff takes priority lol

In other words if you’ve got the time and the desire to fix it, it is probably worth it. Doesn’t look like it’d be too difficult to cut the main drain pipe and plumb in a new one that is the correct height.. It will probably be fine though

Disclaimer: i am not a plumber, just a dude who has done just enough home plumbing to be dangerous

it isn’t technically useless. The point of the p trap is just to keep the bad smells of your plumbing from coming back up through your drain pipe. This will still accomplish that. Your water level will raise up to the point of the drain pipe though, meaning that your garbage disposal will have some standing water in it, which may create it’s own smells, and will probably cause corrosion/mold/whatever else in your garbage disposal.

You didn’t mention changing the garbage disposal out though, so if that and the drain pipe have always been this way and you haven’t had any smells or otherwise negative consequences then it probably isn’t a big deal. It’s definitely functional as a p trap, it will prevent the smell/gas from coming up through your sink like it should

Saying half a million more isn’t inaccurate or sensationalized in this case though. There are a lot of cases where % based increases/decreases are sensationalized as well, maybe even more frequently than raw data. This was done a lot with covid. For example, if I say “the chance of getting myocarditis increases 50% with the covid vaccine” when in reality, it went from 0.2% chance to 0.3% chance, that’s sensationalized and hardly accurate even though it’s technically correct. We need all of the data, both the 42% increase and the 500,000 more callers, to get a full picture of the situation. Statistics are insanely useful, but also extremely easy to force into fitting almost any narrative.

Thanks, I hate it

You don’t get to decide when the time and place is to campaign against anything.

It may seem like I’m campaigning against EV’s to you, but that’s not what’s happening. I don’t have a problem with EV’s, never did, never said that I did.

I’ll happily fight for those kids too. I can’t know all of the ins and outs of every child labor force in the world, I’m just one person with a life and family of my own to take care of. Just because there are other places using child labor doesn’t mean this one isn’t an issue or is somehow acceptable. What you’re saying is like saying “why doesn’t the fca work towards ending child labor in other industries?” Because their mission is the cobalt mines. What did you expect me to do, post listing every child labor force in the DRC and explain steps to fix it? You keep trying to minimize it as if it isn’t a problem at all, and somehow the fact that their are other problems in the world makes this one acceptable.

God, you’re insufferable. It’s still a problem until there aren’t kids working in mines. I don’t care if it’s 2.5% of EV’s man, it’s 40,000 kids.

The lawsuit was dismissed because it’s obvious that the American tech companies cannot be sued for the work environment of a company in another country.

> you are talking about cobalt child labour because you are attacking EV’s. You do not really care about worker welfare.

Well that’s just patently false. I don’t have a problem with EV’s, never did. I’d buy a ford lighting if I could afford one and I wasn’t concerned about the child labor issues. I’m 100% aware of the positive impact EV’s will have in the future. My only issue is child labor, as I’ve said for this entire thread.

Edit: typo

Who won the lawsuit is irrelevant, the lawsuit was against the American tech companies using the cobalt. The point of my posting it was to show that child labor is not only used in the artisanal mines. From the article:

> The researchers on the case estimate that thousands of children mining cobalt – including in concessions owned by Glencore – are forced to work under hazardous conditions at risk of losing life and limb and at the expense of education.

> Some of the child miners, the class action lawsuits notes, are as young as six and have been trafficked to work on the mines. Ten of the plaintiffs in the case were severely wounded or maimed. “John Doe 3” lost his leg at a mine operated by a subsidiary of a Chinese mining company.

You don’t see me talking about rubber wheels because the topic of the thread is lithium batteries.

I believe that moral obligation to help people that you’re benefitting from is existential, not based on government lines. People are people.

And again, that’s all fine and dandy, but the FCA hasn’t actually done anything yet.

Beyond that, it isn’t only artisanal mining that’s a problem

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/glencore-congo-cobalt-mining-lawsuit/45446800

How is that related to what I just said? Any company using cobalt should be doing it, not just EV companies. I don’t care what percent of stuff has it in there, i care about the 40,000 kids that will have long term health problems because of cobalt. Any company using the cobalt should be doing work to end it, just like clothing companies should be doing the same for the labor they use offshore.

I really don’t think that it is, but the companies that are involved in that supply chain would have to put in the work to make it happen. Invest in infrastructure and PPE for the people and pay them enough that they don’t have to have kids working in dangerous positions. But corporations don’t want to do that because it affects their bottom dollar at the end of the day. We can’t be mad at the people doing the job to survive or the consumer that needs the product (i.e, a phone and computer are necessary in the west to get/hold a job most of the time), but the corporations that are profiting off if the unethical practices should be the ones to make the difference. They just won’t, unfortunately.

I did look, but thanks for the source.

> The FCA will work towards a child-labour free operations by supporting ASM operators in establishing effective control and monitoring mechanisms to keep children out of the mines. But more so, we recognise that this is not the full solution; we need to look at it from a child rights perspective, not only ensuring there is no child labour in the mining sites but addressing the root causes and making sure children do not end up in other labour or exploitative situations, i.e. just moving the problem. We are therefore also investing in off-site, community programmes including efforts to prevent and remediate child labour.

Happy to hear this. Glad it’s being worked on.

Unfortunately I can’t help but have a phone and laptop to put food on the table for my kid. Although I do keep my devices as long as possible to avoid the waste and overall impact. I do understand that many families in the DRC cannot afford to stop what they’re doing. My initial approach was incorrect. I get that they need to work to survive, just like i do. I’m not blaming the Congolese and I’m not blaming the consumer that’s buying the products.

> Our first year in operation, taking into account the travel restrictions and challenges presented to us by COVID 19, has been focused on mobilising membership, fundraising and planning.

>We’ve developed a step by step improvement plan with the mine site operators to improve conditions over 3-4 years time; ultimately with the aim of achieving best practices certification.

The FCA hasn’t actually done anything yet, unfortunately. I would love to see the companies buying the cobalt to have invested directly into new infrastructure. They could hire the artisanal miners as contractors or remote employees and pay them well enough that the kids don’t have to work, and supply these mines with the resources needed to make the mining safer and more efficient. Hell, the Congolese only make like $3.50/day. That’s pennies for a company like tesla. They could pay parents that extra amount per day to cover what the kids bring in and invest in infrastructure, and come out with safe practices without changing their bottom line hardly at all. At 3.50/day and 40,000 kids, that’s ~50 mill a year. Pay that extra to the adults, invest another 100 mill in PPE and infrastructure to maintain previous levels of production. Tesla sold 1,000,000 cars in 2021, that cost spread out would be a total of 150$ difference per tesla. Thats nothing on a 40,000$ car, and that’s assuming tesla would be the only company doing it. Of course, they’d have to deal with the established mining companies to do that, but I don’t know why those mining companies wouldn’t be cooperative if it doesn’t affect their profit. They’d end up coming out of the deal with a more efficient and sustainable business, so it only makes sense.

Let’s see a source for the certification process, I can’t find anything about it.

You say “some”, but of the 255,000 Congolese working in the mines, 40,000 are children. That’s a lot more than “some”.

There are companies working with the Congolese to educate and make the process more sustainable, and that’s great. But in the meantime, I’m not cool with 40,000 kids having lifelong damage done to them because of cobalt toxicity.

https://thenextweb.com/news/the-cobalt-free-electric-vehicle-batteries-are-here

> The EV sector uses a combination of lithium-ion battery chemistries, with cobalt-containing cathodes maintaining the largest share. This is due to their energy density and performance –cobalt is particularly important for stability and safety.

I will mention that i mistyped in my previous comment, i meant to say long range EV’s. I believe a number of manufacturers are moving to cobalt free batteries for their standard range models, but most of the long range models require the higher capacity cobalt batteries at this point.

Yeah, no problem. It’s pretty elementary, but I’ll do it for you.

>Almost all long range versions still use cobalt sourced from the DRC

The DRC currently uses child labor to mine their cobalt, so sourcing cobalt from the DRC means cobalt produced by child labor.

> I don’t have a problem with the Congolese profiting off of their cobalt

I don’t, if the Congolese stop using child labor to produce their cobalt. However, we can’t decide what the DRC does with their people and their mining practices, so the only way not to source child labor produced cobalt is to stop using it. If the Congolese decide to stop using child labor, then it’s fine. That’s really not a hard concept.

> just because the solution has not rolled out to everybody does not mean it’s not a solved issue.

That’s not how solutions work. If i get stabbed in the leg but don’t have a tourniquet, my problem has not been solved because a tourniquet exists at a hospital two hours away. If we can manufacture cobalt free batteries but we aren’t doing it for one reason or another, then the problem isn’t solved.

> why do you want to deprive the Congolese of profiting off their mineral wealth?

What an utterly stupid thing to say. I don’t have a problem with the Congolese profiting off of their cobalt, I have a problem with the Congolese having children do the work. Cobalt is extremely toxic and can cause lasting damage, and these kids breathe it in all day long. That’s not a problem to you?

How is saying that children shouldn’t be working in fucking mines trolling? I don’t care what industry the mining is done for, it’s an issue. Cobalt is incredibly toxic and they’re breathing it day in and day out. Something like 40,000 kids. Move to cobalt free batteries for all batteries and it’s fine.

It obviously isn’t though. While non-cobalt batteries are becoming increasingly common for standard range EV batteries, almost all long range versions still use cobalt sourced from the DRC.

If it was feasible to keep make a living in the US without a phone or survive without clothes, I would. As it stands I wear clothes for as long as possible and only replace my phone when it stops being functional.

I never said that this was a problem exclusive to EV’s or that we shouldn’t be moving in that direction, that doesn’t mean it’s not a problem that needs to be addressed.

While true, at this moment in time most used in EV’s do. I’m not sure why I’m getting downvoted, I didn’t say that it was worse than the fossil fuel industry. All I’m saying is that it’s a problem that needs to be addressed, nomatter what industry is using it.

I didn’t say anything about the petrol industry. The fact that the current industry uses it doesn’t mean it’s not a problem that needs to be solved.

Lithium isn’t as far as I know (however it does have a lot of environmental implications), but Cobalt is. There is a shit ton of Cobalt in most li ion batteries. Something like 50% of cobalt used worldwide is used in batteries, and most of it is mined in the Democratic republic of Congo where child labor is used in the mines. Children breathing in toxic cobalt dust all day.

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/drc-mining-industry-child-labor-and-formalization-small-scale-mining

https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/15/22933022/cobalt-mining-ev-electriv-vehicle-working-conditions-congo

Plus the ethical issues with sourcing materials gathered via child labor