By Joel Cherrico, Cherrico Pottery, LLC, Potter/Owner
5/20/2025
(8-10 minute read)
“Please tell the people in your country, a child in the Congo dies every day so that they can plug in their phones.”
~ Congolese miner quote, told by Siddharth Kara, author of, “Cobalt Red: How The Blood Of The Congo Powers Our Lives"
About 8 grams of cobalt are in the lithium ion battery of nearly every smartphone on the planet. Most electric cars contain over 10 pounds (5kg) of cobalt. My blue pottery contains an average of 0.7 grams of cobalt.
Cobalt is magic. It has been used to create beautiful blue pottery for thousands of years. In recent decades, cobalt demand has skyrocketed because it is a key ingredient in technology, mostly smartphone and electric car batteries.
Since founding Cherrico Pottery in 2010, I’ve used a total of about 50 pounds of cobalt to create about 30,000 blue pots (about 50% of the 60,000 total pots I’ve created were not blue, and therefore contained no cobalt).
So, each blue pot contained an average of about 0.7 grams of cobalt.
At the time of this writing, any potter can buy cobalt oxide powder from any pottery supply company in the United States for about $75 per pound. That equals about $0.17 per gram.
Therefore, 0.7 grams of cobalt per pot means that it only costs me about $0.12 per pot, because cobalt is so potent. So little is needed to create brilliant blues.
But what is the true cost? What is the human and environmental cost?
The Truth About Cobalt Slavery in 2023: Why I'm Discontinuing my Bestselling Pottery
In 2023, Cherrico Pottery discontinued our bestselling blue pottery. I was deeply saddened to learn that about 70%+ of global cobalt supply comes from the Congo, Africa, where there is evidence of slavery in cobalt mines. I immediately launched a project to raise awareness, while discontinuing my best selling blue pottery.
I took a big financial hit. Most of my bestselling pottery was now gone. Customers were upset that they couldn’t get their favorite styles, but everyone agreed that I was doing the right thing.
It challenged me to come up with other colors, using my custom glaze chemistry skills, mixing new glazes from raw materials. The result was a 100% cobalt free “Ruby Red Glaze.”
Perhaps there are non-cobalt blues? I spent years searching for chemical alternatives to brilliant, non-toxic, food-safe cobalt blue pottery. I concluded that none exist (except barium, which can be highly toxic and unstable). How about ethically clean cobalt mines, selling cobalt available for purchase? None exist. Seriously, none. If you find any that are actually available for sale with evidence of ethical mining, email me: contact@cherricopottery.com.
For years, both customers and I have struggled together with the tension of wanting blue pottery, while actually being able to have a positive impact on fighting unethical cobalt mining.
Therefore, I recently decided on a new plan. When you purchase any “Nuka Cobalt Pottery” on cherricopottery.com, $2 will be set aside and donated to my goal of fighting cobalt slavery.
How We Are Fighting Cobalt Slavery
$2 from the sale of each piece of Nuka Cobalt Pottery will be used to fight cobalt slavery. So, what does that actually mean?
Unfortunately, there is no credible organization, non-profit or charity dedicated to eliminating cobalt slavery in the Congo, where an estimated 70% of global cobalt supply was mined in 2024. There are many organizations who claim that they are trying, but overwhelming evidence convinces me that mining atrocities are still rampant. I considered trying to join a larger collective like faircobaltalliance.org or cobaltinstitute.org, but decided against it after seeing evidence that they were founded by Swiss and Chinese mining companies. In my opinion, their efforts to eliminate these problems have been miniscule. They promote their current "Artisanal Mining" which, in my opinion, promotes horrendously dangerous, underpaid work in toxic squalor.
“There’s no clean cobalt. Anyone that claims otherwise is either peddling in falsehoods or is recklessly ignorant of the truth.” - Siddharth Kara
Therefore, my strategy for the most effective way to fight cobalt slavery is twofold:
- Raise public awareness.
- Donate all money to those best positioned to help. $2 from the sale of each piece of Nuka Cobalt Pottery will go directly to those most qualified to help ease the human suffering of cobalt slavery: The International Committee of the Red Cross, The Democratic Republic of Congo Red Cross.
The Congolese people have suffered from corruption, war and exploitation for most of modern history. My strategy is not a perfect one, but it will prevent people from ignoring their current plight. I don’t expect my tiny pottery company to have any major impact on changing global laws and billion dollar industries. But it will raise awareness to some people who otherwise didn’t know about modern day slavery. And the money will go directly to those best positioned to help ease suffering: directly from Cherrico Pottery to the bank account of The International Committee of the Red Cross, The Democratic Republic of Congo Red Cross; boots on the ground helpers in the Congo.
My goal to "raise public awareness" might sound like milquetoast half-effort. But I believe it is better than putting money into the wrong, potentially corrupt hands, by letting those in power tell us what to believe. It is also better than being apathetic.
My strategy is far from perfect. If you have a better one, please email us anytime: contact@cherricopottery.com. Other pottery that I make also requires small amounts of cobalt, like the light blue clouds of my Mountain Pottery, and nearly all of the mugs on my website cosmicmugs.com have a tiny percentage of cobalt, in my black glaze, typicaly about 0.5% by weight. Most Cosmic Mugs also have additions of 24 karat gold and copper, which are also conflict minerals historically, so I'm far from solving all of the world's problems with my plan. But this plan of trying to help fight cobalt mining slavey is one that I can confidently commit to.
Customers of Nuka Cobalt Pottery, and I, will know that we are not ignoring even one suffering human. Instead, we are actively making an honest effort to help.
"Always look for the helpers. Because if you look for the helpers, you'll know that there's hope." - Fred Rogers, quoting his mother, 1999 interview, Archive of American Television
Thank you for following my art,
Joel Cherrico
P.s.
I will make donations once per quarter, and announce them as a permanent record through my future email newsletters, delivered to your email inbox: cherricopottery.com/newsletter
