A few very poised thoughts on industrial mining <3
Wild clay potters, leave alone the country roads and just buy some clay!
I know most of you have never connected the practice of foraging to green environmentalism, because we all know that it’s much more complex than that, but a guy said so. He also said that buying is greener! Commercial extractivism is greener!
I’ll give you some facts, because he failed to do so, despite being obviously right.
Let’s take a single company we all know, Sibelco, and analyse why we should buy more and support them. But honestly, it doesn’t make much difference. Unlike wild clay potters strongly divided into SUV or Ford tribes (guy words, not mine), most commercial mining companies behave very much alike.
Does Sibelco make enough money? No! Last year they made a very mortifying amount of 3.3 billion euros, which is honestly embarrassing considering the amount of human, labour and environment rights violations they carry out on a global scale.
Does Sibelco own enough land or mine enough? No! Sibelco is the largest private corporate landowner in Flanders, owning more than 2000 hectares, but only there. So they could own more! Sibelco mines in only 114 locations in 31 countries. That’s gross. Not enough!
Would Sibelco ever put profit before communities? Hell no! On the contrary they often do that very cute practice of offering financial incentives to selected members of local communities who oppose them. In Australia for example, In 2019 Sibelco was supposed to close their activities on Straddie island according to a contract they signed, but instead decided to keep mining. They generously offered over $20 Million in financial incentives to selected community organisations and members of the Quandamooka community who were opposing them, but this definitely wasn’t done to divide the community and pay off those who could fight them. Sibelco today is still mining sand on Straddie island because they just love people so much!
Is Sibelco bad like those guys from the oil and gas industry? Absolutely not! Sibelco is the largest supplier of hydraulic fracturing sand to the oil and gas industry, but they are in no way connected whatsoever. You don’t know what fracking is? It’s a beautiful thing (just don’t look it up). Buy some fracturing sand yourself. You don’t need it? Who cares. At least you won’t go around foraging.
Would Sibelco kill for some sand or clay? No! They value the safety of their workers, and if someone does die or get severely injured, it’s obviously not their fault. For example in Robilante Italy a few years ago they argued as their defence thesis in court that, regarding safety at their mine, personal prevention was more important than company’s collective prevention.
You cannot find a single extraction mine worldwide where one of their workers wasn’t severely injured or killed over the years? Well, you are probably bad at researching.Does Sibelco pollute our air? Absolutely not! They write it in their financial report! Here’s what they say, for example, about one of their production facilities in San Cesario near Modena: “we have successfully deployed a world leading recycling process technology delivering higher yields and industry leading quality performance. The San Cesario plant also brings Sibelco a step closer to realising our longer term ambition of developing a carbon neutral zero waste recycling plant”. Amazing! In 2023 in San Cesario there wasn’t one single day in which the air was safely breathable due to pm10 glass dust, but it’s definitely not due to the only glass production facility in the town. Must be something else. Possibly the 500 people living there are all foraging clay in their SUVs.
Does Sibelco pay taxes? Absolutely not! Why would they pay taxes when, unlike you, they can just avoid it? (In 2014 in Australia they made 412 Million and paid 0$ taxes. Sibelco paid NIL income tax in Australia until at least 2016. Do you want to know how much taxes they paid in your country? Chances are you paid more).
I am sure you have heard them all on the mining industry: from opaque allocation of rights to environmental and health impacts disproportionately felt by communities living in the vicinity of operations, critical labour incidents at mine-sites, shady corporate practices, lack of accountability, violation of human rights, biodiversity loss, pollution, limitation of access to freshwater, displacement and health and safety threats, “investors’ rights” limiting the ability of local governments to regulate multinationals operating on their soil, and a lack of comprehensive news on their practice and circulation of money.
But the reality is, thank god they are around to make the world greener, if only it wasn’t for those wild clay potters gathering with their tribes.
To reiterate for those who really don’t want to understand: commercially extracting materials DOES NOT have a devastating impact on the environment and local communities, and the regulatory context on mining activities is definitely up to the task of making landowners richer.
In Italy for example, in seven regions out of 20, companies do not have to follow any mining plans and directives, in three regions they pay NIL taxes while in most regions the taxation doesn’t even reach 2% of the sale price of the material mined (by contrast, if you are a potter in Italy your normal taxation will be at least 40% of your total income).
Despite what you might think, the low or NIL rate of taxation for mining DOES NOT have a huge impact on local communities, because I know personally all of them and they don’t want improvements in local welfare and infrastructure. They prefer that the profits of their labour and land are channelled off to big multinationals.
Locals also very much enjoy the health and environmental consequences of mining. For example in Italy we all love that, while we separate our silly recycling, the rate of illegal waste disposal from commercial mines exceeds 50% of the total amount of the material mined, which means that more than 50% of everything extracted goes into landfill. Such beautiful circularity.
Worldwide, most commercial clay mining is done in open air pits, which is the cutest way of mining as you can really see it and sometimes also breathe it in the air. Stone poetry, in the lungs.
Companies also ALWAYS reclaim their site after abandoning it. Have you ever seen an abandoned mine with no effort to reclaim it? Yes? You are wrong. In Italy for example we only have around 15.000 abandoned mines. That’s very little. I think we should have more inaccessible land.
Commercial mining is one of the most transparent industries around. There’s just so much information on it.
It’s inspiring to see an industry that survived till today without changing anything of their colonial model of stealing, disfiguring and exploiting land and communities. How do they manage? Between escapes and changes of ownership, bankruptcies and financial games, incriminating any of them is often impossible. Which is great, for them.
So, support mining corporations. Save the world. It’s going to be so green without foragers!
Sources
Legambiente Rapporto Cave 2021 https://www.legambiente.it/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Rapporto-Cave-2021.pdf?_gl=1*7lea3*_up*MQ..*_ga*MjA3ODg5Mzk5NS4xNzA2OTYyMTAw*_ga_LX7CNT6SDN*MTcwNjk2MjA5OC4xLjAuMTcwNjk2MjA5OC4wLjAuMA
Kofi Asante-Kyei, Alexander Addae, The Economic and Environmental Impacts on Clay Harvesting at Abonko in the Mfantsiman West District of Central Region, Ghana, 2015 https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/235049867.pdf
Almeida, Janilton de Lima. Environmental impacts caused by clay extraction in the municipality of Ibiassucê-BA, 2020 https://www.nucleodoconhecimento.com.br/environment/clay-extraction
Robin James Sullivan, Maddie Rose Hills, White River Blue Lagoon Green Mound, A Conversation about Cornwall’s China Clay Industry https://material-matters.cityandguildsartschool.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/White-river-blue-lagoon-green-mound.pdf
U B Alladustov, Sh N Imamnazarov, Ecological impact on the environment of industrial mining of bentonite clays https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/868/1/012048/pdf
Industrial minerals and rocks: commodities, markets and uses https://nasiri.iut.ac.ir/sites/nasiri.iut.ac.ir/files//files_course/industrial_minerals_rocks_commodities_markets_and_uses.pdf
Swapna Mukherjee, Environmental Impacts of Clay-related Industries https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312722259_Environmental_Impacts_of_Clay-related_Industries
Angela Oyilieze Akanwa, Ngozi N. Joe-Ikechebelu, Sustainable natural resources exploitation: Clay/sand mining on diminishing greener security and increased climate risks in Nigeria
Sequestrata cava abusiva di argilla https://www.ilgiorno.it/monza-brianza/cronaca/sequestrata-cava-abusiva-di-argilla-89c5c3e6
Blitz del Noe: sotto sequestro cava di argilla https://www.ilgiorno.it/monza-brianza/cronaca/sequestrata-cava-abusiva-di-argilla-89c5c3e6
Druento: cittadini e Comune contro la cava di argilla prevista dal Piano per le attività estrattive https://www.salviamoilpaesaggio.it/blog/2023/05/druento-cittadini-e-comune-contro-la-cava-di-argilla-prevista-dal-piano-per-le-attivita-estrattive/
Smaltimenti illegali in cava, Legambiente: "Il Comune sia parte civile" https://www.ilgiorno.it/milano/cronaca/smaltimenti-illegali-in-cava-legambiente-il-comune-sia-parte-civile-459d39b6
Mazzette cave: quello umbro un modello di gestione del territorio predatorio, ad alto rischio illegalità, che necessita di essere completamente ribaltato. https://www.legambienteumbria.it/mazzette-cave/
«Allarme illegalità alle cave Michelangelo: pochi blocchi e detriti al 91%» https://www.voceapuana.com/attualita/2019/02/26/allarme-illegalit-alle-cave-michelangelo-pochi-blocchi-e-detriti-al-91/16745/
"I traffici delle ecomafie anche nelle cave novaresi" https://www.lastampa.it/novara/2012/06/18/news/i-traffici-delle-ecomafie-anche-nelle-cave-novaresi-1.36471253/
Cave: un business per pochi, un danno per molti https://liberapiemonte.it/2014/05/27/cave-un-business-per-pochi-un-danno-per-molti/
In Calabria le cave abusive non sono censite e le cosche della ‘ndrangheta controllano così il ciclo del cemento illegale https://robertogalullo.blog.ilsole24ore.com/2017/02/15/in-calabria-le-cave-abusive-non-sono-censite-e-le-cosche-della-ndrangheta-controllano-cosi-il-ciclo-del-cemento-illegale/?refresh_ce=1
Sources on Sibelco
Data on income
From Construction to Fracking: Washed Silica Sand's Diverse Market Presence | Industry Challenges and Opportunities https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/from-construction-fracking-washed-silica-sands-diverse-bhavsar/
Land registry research for the year 2016 showed that SCR-Sibelco was the largest private landowner in Flanders, with more than 2,000 hectares of primary ownership directly or through its subsidiary NMZ.
Blue blood rules Flemish soil https://apache.be/2021/03/08/blauw-bloed-heerst-over-vlaamse-grond
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Voici les 10 Belges les plus riches du Royaume https://fr.businessam.be/voici-les-10-belges-les-plus-riches-du-royaume/
Court case in Robilante
Operaio morì per un incidente in cava a Robilante, nuova perizia https://laguida.it/2023/12/12/operaio-mori-per-un-incidente-in-cava-a-robilante-nuova-perizia/
On mining on Straddie island and paying off community members
https://savestraddie.com/mining/
NIL taxes from 2014 to 2016 in Australia
Corporate Tax Transparency https://data.gov.au/dataset/ds-dga-c2524c87-cea4-4636-acac-599a82048a26/details
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The ATO just dropped corporate tax data and more than 700 companies paid nothing https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-07/corporate-tax-data-released-by-ato/9236878?fbclid=IwAR0QnylQOtgIjESnuqzP_5vp8_RSYWP5oL6T7N4y3TYK09vk8-VhPKDGODQ
Quotes on the efficiency and sustainability of the San Cesario plant
Sibelco financial report https://assets-eu-01.kc-usercontent.com/54dbafb3-2008-0172-7e3d-74a0128faac8/bb7e4fb7-eb0a-4bb6-9594-863a945c3dc9/Sibelco_AR2022%20%20Financial%20statements%20EN%20%28nav%29_FINAL.pdf
Air in San Cesario in 2023 wasn’t breathable for 365 consecutive days
Concentrazioni alle stelle, la polvere di vetro torna a minacciare San Cesario https://www.modenatoday.it/attualita/analisi-arpae-vetro-san-cesario-2023.html
Sibelco being the largest supplier of fracking sand
Anti-frackers put fracking sand suppliers Sibelco on notice and say, ‘We’ll be back’ https://reclaimthepower.org.uk/uncategorized/breaking-anti-frackers-put-fracking-sand-suppliers-sibelco-on-notice-and-say-well-be-back%EF%BB%BF/
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https://frack-off.org.uk/companies/sibelco-uk-ltd/
Dangerous incident involving a worker at Attunga Limestone Mine https://www.resourcesregulator.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/2022-10/investigation-report-dangerous-incident-involving-a-worker-at-attunga-limestone-mine.pdf
Sibelco Australia fined $95,000 after employee Robert Cartwright falls three metres to his death https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/sibelco-australia-fined-95000-after-employee-robert-cartwright-falls-three-metres-to-his-death/news-story/0baabcb12c35e8fcd182fc84bf8858b2
King’s Lynn man killed in quarry accident https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/21157155.kings-lynn-man-killed-quarry-accident/
Balaruc-les-Bains : amputation après un accident de travail https://www.midilibre.fr/2016/06/03/balaruc-les-bains-amputation-apres-un-accident-de-travail,1343127.php