The mining companies destroy the rainforest, contaminate the water and air and in Minas Gerais, they caused one of the biggest catastrophes in Brazil. You may ask yourself now how this disaster is affecting us in Germany. We are far away from Brazil, our water is great and our mining industry is nearly dead. And if not our laws are securing every possible situation.

 WHAT ABOUT YOU?

You may have heard about the big German steel company ThyssenKrupp which provides the steel for the car industry. With 36000 employees it is the biggest Business in the steel market in Germany and has a lot of influence. The majority of its iron ore gets ThyssenKrupp from mines in Brazil. Not directly from „Samarco“ which is the company that held the broken dam, but from Vale.

This mining company has a 50%-Share from Samarco and is accused that Vale holds his employees like slaves, destroys the environment and forces displacement of indigenous people in the rainforest in Brazil.

So with this mother business in the back Samarco grow one of the biggest iron ore producers in the world. With a revenue of 2.5 Billion US-$ in 2014, Samarco took 40% of its earnings for itself.

Four months before the dam break the government did a control in the mine and declared that the dam was safe. But as we saw in November 2015 the dam did not last and broke down. Until today Samarco doesn´t have a licence to produce again in Minas Gerais.

And it is our fault too?.
Well, perhaps,
We are the buyers of the end product of the steel and we are not questioning the origin of our products enough!

One-fifth of the iron ore from Samarco comes directly to Europe and is used here. But can you find that clear in a statement from the steel companies? NO. In the whole production cycle is no transparency given at all. The consumers- we- have really little opportunities to inform ourselves about the business connections.

But the companies who want to inform themselves have troubles too. It is really hard to get separate the origin of the ores when they are melted. It is common in the mining business to not declare which parties in the melting process are coming from which mine. So the steel producers are buying „dark“ metal because the mining companies are hiding their bad production conditions and corruption.

Here in Germany, 55% of the produced steel comes from Brazilian ore. Although ThyssenKrupp who gets two-thirds of his ore from Brazil states that it never bought ore from Samarco they have a business Partnership with Vale. And as we already know is Vale the shareholder of Samarco.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A normal family car weighs around 1.300kg and 1 ton of it are just metals: Steel, iron, aluminium, copper and a little bit of platin. These metals are brought from all over the world to the production plant and are costing a lot of money.

In the electronic car is less steel needed but instead, there is graphite, nickel, cobalt, manganese and lithium that are used in the battery are destroying the environment significantly with its production and consumption.

On the other hand, smartphone producers are already facing harsh criticism because their raw material is causing a lot of environmental problems.  But in comparison to a car, their use of metals is incredibly small. In one car they need the amount of metals from 30.000 Smartphones. And every year around 60 millions of cars are sold. That are 60 billions kilograms of metal or 1800 billion smartphones. HUGE numbers, aren´t they?!

Why did not we question this exploitation from the earth before?

To offer raw ore from fair mining the mining companies could introduce their business model to fair trade. The price difference would be around 200Euros for a new car in total. In comparison to the high price, it is an acceptable change. But the consumers don´t want it and are tolerating child labour, environmental damage and mining deaths every year with their behaviour.

So is it worth it to pay a bit more, to inform yourself and question the production cycles?
 

WHAT ABOUT YOU?! 

 

 

http://tool.wiwo.de/wiwoapp/3d/storyflow/102017/fuerdeinauto/index.html 

http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/thyssenkrupp-ceo-ekkehard-schulz-iron-ore-speculators-serious-threat-to-global-economy-a-697930.html

https://www.thyssenkrupp-steel.com/media/content_1/compact/compact_2014_3/infografik_1/tkse-1403-de-hochofen_mit-headline-klein_image_w886.jpg