There’s no question about it: We love Apple. Take a stroll on the Quad, and you’ll see student after student charging between classes with ear buds in and an iPod at hand. The media is frequently buzzing about the next iPhone release. Even The Daily Illini newsroom is a shrine to Macs, iPads and iPhones.

These devices have become invaluable to us and hold a nearly constant place in our society — but at what price?

Public Radio International’s “This American Life” aired a special about the nitty-gritty of Apple’s manufacturing, reported by Mike Daisey, an amateur journalist and Apple connoisseur who took to Shenzhen, China, looking to answer questions he had about his faith. It would be an understatement to say what he found was unsettling.

During the first hours of his visit to Foxconn’s company in Shenzhen, where Apple manufactures its products, Daisey met at least three workers under the age of 16 — and he estimated at least 5 percent of workers were underage. These children work under “standard” shifts of 12 hours, which often extend to 14 or 16 without being paid overtime. And depending on the type of work being done, employees could be subject to harmful conditions, such as hexane, a neurotoxin used for cleaning screens. As an extra note: Foxconn is the manufacturing company that received mass suicide threats from its employees earlier this month if it didn’t change its business practices.

Daisey’s monologue goes into excruciating detail, but here’s the thing: We all know unethical labor practices are not exclusive to Apple. Outsourcing has become a business-savvy method of accruing a profit and minimizing cost, largely because of lowered labor costs, and any business that doesn’t have a hand in it is out for a struggle in this financial climate.

But a teeming business like Apple, whose quarterly net profits hit a record high just last month, has no reason to participate in these immoral practices. The business that made just over $13 billion in the 2011 holiday quarter can afford to coerce its manufacturing partners to raise employee’s working conditions — and not employ underage children — without risking its competitiveness nor the low costs of its product to its consumers.

Since the uproar about Foxconn company’s working conditions, Apple CEO Tim Cook released a memo to his employees, detailing the provisions they’d be taking to make amends and ways to remain transparent about the manufacturing process. These are the first steps. Such ghastly conditions can only be stopped with Apple’s whole-hearted intent to put an end to child labor and inhumane working conditions.