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CALLING AT ANY COST A report by Hella van der Wijst (HvdW) and
Karin Bakker HvdW: The mobile phone is a common possession
the world over. We worry about the prices of the newest smartphone
and our subscriptions, but not about the destruction caused.
Without tin, no mobile phone. That also applies to yours - there’s seven grams of soldering
tin in it and there’s a big chance that it comes from one of the thousands of mines
here on Bangka, which have resulted in this tropical island being ploughed into a moon
landscape. Biologist Eddie Nurtjahya (EN): The soil becomes
infertile so it’s very difficult to grow everything on it.
Former tin miner Suge: Suddenly there was a collapse, we all tried to flee. God decided
that some survived it. While others, like me, got injured.
Industrial ecologist Rene Klein (RK): The fact that people work under terrible conditions,
earning starvation wages in Bangka to produce tin for us is very unfair, of course.
EN: Even offshore, the coral reef and sea grass is also affected by the tin mining.
Suge: The dilemma for people is: what do I need to do today to survive? How do I manage
to get enough food to provide for my family today?
HvdW: Due to rocketing sales of tablets and smartphones, the race for scarce raw materials
such as tin has now started to get serious, because the places where tin is to be found,
such as here, are few. Our hunger for luxury is causing a silent disaster on Bangka Island.
And you see that from the air as you arrive. The 6000 holes in the landscape are tin mines,
and in the sea, there are 6000 rafts with illegal tin miners.
Pilot: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Pangkal Pinang airport.
Local NGO director Ratno Budi (RB): Hi! HvdW: This must be Friends of the Earth?
RB: Yeah, I think it’s the slogan of Whali. HvdW: Together with Milieudefensie, Friends
of the Earth and Whali of Indonesia, Ratno Budi has investigated the real price of our
mobile phones. The report is due out this week, but he is prepared to tell ‘Brandpunt’
what this price is ahead of publication. RB: All the people in this village were farmers.
After mining came here, many people changed jobs, the culture changed. Nobody in the outside
world knows about this. HvdW: 80% of the population of Bangka works
in the mining industry, which supplies one third of all the tin in our smartphones and
electrical appliances. Indonesia is the world’s biggest tin producer after China.
RB: Before, this was a mangrove area. It was a protected forest. And now, I cannot see
any trees or vegetation. Since mining came here, everything is dead. The only thing you
can see is this. It’s only sand, not soil. HvdW: Why did you start to investigate the
true cost of your mobile phone? RB: We are very angry about this. They should
have been more careful with the environment. Biodiversity needs to be handled with care.
We hope that the countries that use our tin will support us when they see this situation.
Then they will know that Bangka cannot meet the whole world’s demand for tin anymore.
HvdW: Until the fall of the Suharto regime in 1998, the state had a monopoly on tin mining
on Bangka. Then, the market was opened to private enterprise, as happened here, where
the biggest semi-state company PT Timah operated, before departing for another mine.
Worker: Watch out, stay away. HvdW: They are called ‘informal’ tin miners
in Indonesia. We would say ‘illegal’. With the increasing prosperity in China and
India and the rocketing sales of smartphones and tablets, demand for tin has since 2000
risen so much that tin has become gold for poor people such as Siti Maria.
Siti Maria: I’m scared that the tin will run out, that the sand will collapse and that
I’ll die. It’s dangerous, you need to be careful. I worked on Madoera. I grew rice
and maize, I had cattle. But sometimes, I couldn’t earn enough from that. That’s
why I left, to earn money for my children. HvdW: This is tin ore? Good (quality)?
Siti Maria: Yes, this is pure tin. HvdW: Very expensive, eh?
But Maria doesn’t see the profits; she and the others work for 2-5 euro per day, for
a land owner who often excavates his land without a licence. The land owner, the lively
trade done by middlemen, the tin smelting businesses and the Indonesian government ultimately
take the profits from the island’s tin. Siti Maria: I’m very upset. I work myself
to the bone, but it’s not enough. Things are not going well for me anymore.
HvdW: We ask biologist Eddie Nurtjahya from the University of Bangka how long the island
can maintain this intensive tin mining. EN: It’s like harvest time, so it’s like
a big harvest. But very soon, there will be nothing left. The tin mine is polluted, for
the villagers. Usually people wash and take their water from there but partly due to the
tin mining it’s getting polluted, dirtier. They don’t complain about that because they
earn money from the tin mines. They don’t realise what it means for their future.
HvdW: Do you know the true cost of your smartphone? EN: The true cost. Cheap, about 600,000 rupees
(60 euros). HvdW: Anyone can buy a mobile phone - and
we do. It is predicted that there will be more mobiles than people in 2017, many of
which will be made with Bangka soldering tin. This tower is one of the few remnants of the
colonial era in which we Dutch obtained not only pepper but also the first tin. In those
days, it was for tin signs and tin cans. Now, there’s proportionally more tin in our mobiles
than in our cars. According to Dutch industrial ecologist Rene Klein, the rocketing demand
for scarce raw materials has caused a ‘race’ for such raw materials.
RK: The period between 2002 and 2008 saw the demand for raw materials increase hugely and
also the price of raw materials. This was caused by the enormous growth that took place
in countries like China and India and Brazil where many cities were built up and people
became much better off. As a result, demand for iPads, computers and other things like
cars and fridges increased. HvdW: Back to Bangka, where for a couple of
years tin mining on land has been in recession, and as a result, unsafe tin mining of the
seafloor around the former tropical paradise has begun.
RB: You can see that the colour of the sea has changed. This is a problem for the fishermen,
for the ecosystem, the coral and the turtles, I think.
EN: The coral is getting blanketed with silt. Then the nutrient cycle is affected. If the
coral dies, that affects the plankton, and also the fish and also the fishermen as it
is very difficult to catch fish. HvdW: Is there less control when it comes
to tin mining on sea than on land because it’s out of sight?
EN: We don’t have any regulations on the sea, up to now. So far, there is no regulation
for dredging to find tin. HvdW: Empty nets for the fishermen, no tourists
anymore, and the end of the turtle is in sight, to the sorrow of Mr. Tonno.
Mr. Tonno: The turtles have almost died out. If I didn’t look after these, our grandchildren
wouldn’t know what turtles were. HvdW: Before tin extraction at sea began,
these big turtles laid eggs on the beach. Since the arrival of the tin ships, not even
one. Mr. Tonno: If we don’t keep the small turtles
here, then they all get sucked up by the ships. They are too small to find their own food.
HvdW: Because apart from illegal rafts, there are also 83 of this type of enormous industrial
ships, which suck up 100-200 cubic metres of sand per hour. And ironically enough, four
hundred years later it’s a Dutch ship that is helping to extract tin in the sea, a dredger
bought by Indonesians. Satria (illegal tin miner): Recently, two
people died at Toboali. It’s dangerous work. You can get buried under the sand and you
can get cramp because of the cold. But still, better this work than no money.
HvdW: Every week, an illegal tin miner has an accident at sea or on land. There are rules
about who can do what on which area of sea or land, but that is interpreted in the ‘Indonesian’
way, as the chairman of the biggest party in Bangka’s parliament explains.
Party chairman Srigusjaya: The dilemma is that people understand that mining tin without
rules has negative consequences for the environment and for the future of the population. But
on the other side, there still has to be bread on the table.
HvdW: So who is responsible? The local government, the national government or the people?
Party chairman Srigusjaya: Those who made the laws, the people who enforce them and
the tin miners. They all have to take their responsibility.
EN: I think that part of it is - I don’t know, maybe it’s not the right word - that
they’re ‘doing business’... HvdW: Sorry, bribery?
EN: Yes, that. But that’s the practice, the habit on this island.
HvdW: There are rules, but they are hardly enforced. The legally required replanting
of the soil is only done on a tiny scale, because it costs hundreds of euros per hectare.
And because safety regulations are not followed, accidents like Suge’s continue to happen
on a weekly basis. Suge: I never thought that I was going to
die. When I was lying under the sand, I saw only my daughter before me. I saw her face.
HvdW: Are you willing to take the risk again? Suge: Maybe. I can find other work, but you
can earn more mining tin. It’s just the law of nature. We cannot avoid it, so we don’t
think about it too much. RB: In that big hole, three mineworkers died.
Suge survived, but tomorrow there will be new Suges who don’t survive.
HvdW: Everyone I talk to, and even the national Minister of Mining, admits that tin mining on Bangka has got completely out
of hand, but as long as there’s money to be made, little will change. So now, international
environmental groups are asking electronics manufacturers to apply pressure.
RB: It is important that the companies which buy tin - electronics manufacturers and carmakers
- think about whether they really want to use tin that is produced in this way.
HvdW: We asked the most important electronics manufacturers - Samsung, Philips and Apple
- for their response. Samsung and Philips say they have been working to prevent these
kinds of conditions for years. Our programme has given Samsung reason to review the situation
in Bangka. RB: People should understand and know that
our mobile phones are made at the cost of the souls of the innocent mineworkers on Bangka.
HvdW: Thousands of mobile phones are dumped on waste heaps every hour, each containing
seven grams of hard-won tin from Bangka. You can find a list of the other raw materials
in your smartphone on our website www.kro.nl/brandpunt, where we also take a mobile phone apart completely.
Why is tin recycled so little? RK: That’s because the new tin from the
mines is so cheap that it is not profitable to do that.
HvdW: What can we do with all the mobile phones and smartphones that people don’t use anymore?
RK: You’ve got to give people an incentive to bring them to a collection point. That
could be a charity collection, for example. But maybe we need to move to a system where
you don’t actually own your phone. HvdW: Leasing?
RK: Yes, leasing. Leasing could motivate companies to think more about product design, because
if you want to recycle the products, you often face problems because of the way the products
have been designed, which makes it difficult to take out the parts.
RB: We advise people across the world not to buy more than one mobile phone. One is
enough.