Impacts on people (the cultural environment)
The mining of tin has a large impact on the inhabitants of the Bangka and Belitung islands, as it negatively affects the way some of the people go about their daily lives. For a start, from a young age, children are taught and encouraged to go into tin mining as a way of providing income for their families. Many children around the ages of around 14 or younger leave their schooling and possible future education opportunities behind for tempting offers by local miners who make promises to pay and support them well in exchange for digging up tin ore. As soon as work begins children are threatened by employers, abused, and forced to work long hours in dangerous conditions for little pay. This is known as child labour, which is illegal in many countries around the world, including Indonesia. It is likely that young workers from Bangka and Belitung Island who are exploited continue to be affected for the rest of their lives by the experience of working in a tin mine, some traumatised and injured. Many of them, however, still end up working as adult tin miners, whether legally or illegally, because of their lack in education and therefore choice in other fields of work, turning a short-term problem into a continuing one.
An issue that affects all the residents of the two islands is the difficulty in finding clean drinking water, as the slurry from the mining pits contaminates the water in and around the island, making it unsafe for consumption. This
Most Indonesian tin miners are men, often holding full responsibility of supporting their families. Depending on where they work, their job endangers this position that they have due to some of the unsafe practices Bangka-Belitung island mining uses. When conducted from a boat, tin mining in Bangka and Belitung is not very dangerous because suctions do most of the work. However, many independent or small-scale miners dive into holes dug on the sides of the islands or under the water surface to excavate the tin ore by hand. On land, pits and shafts are created and miners lower themselves into them to dig, surrounded by mud and soil walls. These shafts are not very stable and are prone to collapsing, often over the working miners. Most informal workers do not have proper equipment and mining tools, due to financial reasons, and work barefooted, digging with the aid of only their feet and hands, some being more fortunate to use pickaxes. Wearing no shoes and little clothing increases chances of contracting illnesses and injury from sharp pieces of rock. When working in mud and water, there is always a high chance of drowning or becoming engulfed in sand especially when wearing no flotation devices like many of the miners in Bangka and Belitung. Those who dig holes on the actual islands are lucky if they survive landslides of shafts caving in on them, as they are regular occurrences and if not fatal to miners, landslides leave them with crippling injuries or broken bones, for which there is rarely any compensation. An average of one person was killed every week on Bangka Island or Belitung Island in 2012 from a collapsing tin mine pit, because they couldn’t be rescued early enough. The deaths and injuries of miners is an ongoing issue in Bangka and Belitung, and far from nearing a current resolution.
Tin mining has good pay, for some. The Bangka and Belitung Islands are off a lot better financially than other places in Indonesia. Tin production impacts the current local economy of Bangka and Belitung well, even with the health and legal risks associated with the job. In Indonesia, a developing country, the annual GDP per person in 2013 was $3475.25, low compared to developed countries, and with a total population of 1.26 million people living in the Bangka-Belitung Islands, there are more people competing for already limited job opportunities. Bangka and Belitung are popular destinations for tourism in Indonesia, because of their beaches and seas. However, jobs in Bangka and Belitung tourism have become limited as tin mining grows, and destroys the beaches with mine pits and mining waste dirtying the water. Cultivation of crops has also decreased, with destruction of land for more mines being dug. Most (roughly 20% of the population and another 40% indirectly) turn to tin mining for their work, as it has double the income that farming or most other jobs in Bangka or Belitung provide. Owners of tin mining operations, legal or illegal, earn more than the workers, as they are usually the middlemen who sell on the tin their employees have gathered to smelters, but it is still not much compared to the pay standards set by developed countries. The tin mining that occurs in Bangka Island and Belitung Island gives returns of $98.3 million in New Zealand dollars to Indonesia every year, making up a large part of its economy. The workers in Bangka and Belitung, however, get a very small cut of this, only being paid $11.70 in NZ currency, which is barely enough to support living costs for themselves and their families, for each day they risk their lives to provide tin that is used by almost every other person in the world but them, usually in the form of solder used in electronic devices. Technology companies such as Apple and Samsung are some of the biggest users of Indonesian tin, and it is difficult for them to find out whether it was ethically sourced, or if it brings negative effects upon the labourers who mine it, because of the lack of legislation and transparency around Bangka and Belitung tin mining.
The mining of tin has a large impact on the inhabitants of the Bangka and Belitung islands, as it negatively affects the way some of the people go about their daily lives. For a start, from a young age, children are taught and encouraged to go into tin mining as a way of providing income for their families. Many children around the ages of around 14 or younger leave their schooling and possible future education opportunities behind for tempting offers by local miners who make promises to pay and support them well in exchange for digging up tin ore. As soon as work begins children are threatened by employers, abused, and forced to work long hours in dangerous conditions for little pay. This is known as child labour, which is illegal in many countries around the world, including Indonesia. It is likely that young workers from Bangka and Belitung Island who are exploited continue to be affected for the rest of their lives by the experience of working in a tin mine, some traumatised and injured. Many of them, however, still end up working as adult tin miners, whether legally or illegally, because of their lack in education and therefore choice in other fields of work, turning a short-term problem into a continuing one.
An issue that affects all the residents of the two islands is the difficulty in finding clean drinking water, as the slurry from the mining pits contaminates the water in and around the island, making it unsafe for consumption. This
Most Indonesian tin miners are men, often holding full responsibility of supporting their families. Depending on where they work, their job endangers this position that they have due to some of the unsafe practices Bangka-Belitung island mining uses. When conducted from a boat, tin mining in Bangka and Belitung is not very dangerous because suctions do most of the work. However, many independent or small-scale miners dive into holes dug on the sides of the islands or under the water surface to excavate the tin ore by hand. On land, pits and shafts are created and miners lower themselves into them to dig, surrounded by mud and soil walls. These shafts are not very stable and are prone to collapsing, often over the working miners. Most informal workers do not have proper equipment and mining tools, due to financial reasons, and work barefooted, digging with the aid of only their feet and hands, some being more fortunate to use pickaxes. Wearing no shoes and little clothing increases chances of contracting illnesses and injury from sharp pieces of rock. When working in mud and water, there is always a high chance of drowning or becoming engulfed in sand especially when wearing no flotation devices like many of the miners in Bangka and Belitung. Those who dig holes on the actual islands are lucky if they survive landslides of shafts caving in on them, as they are regular occurrences and if not fatal to miners, landslides leave them with crippling injuries or broken bones, for which there is rarely any compensation. An average of one person was killed every week on Bangka Island or Belitung Island in 2012 from a collapsing tin mine pit, because they couldn’t be rescued early enough. The deaths and injuries of miners is an ongoing issue in Bangka and Belitung, and far from nearing a current resolution.
Tin mining has good pay, for some. The Bangka and Belitung Islands are off a lot better financially than other places in Indonesia. Tin production impacts the current local economy of Bangka and Belitung well, even with the health and legal risks associated with the job. In Indonesia, a developing country, the annual GDP per person in 2013 was $3475.25, low compared to developed countries, and with a total population of 1.26 million people living in the Bangka-Belitung Islands, there are more people competing for already limited job opportunities. Bangka and Belitung are popular destinations for tourism in Indonesia, because of their beaches and seas. However, jobs in Bangka and Belitung tourism have become limited as tin mining grows, and destroys the beaches with mine pits and mining waste dirtying the water. Cultivation of crops has also decreased, with destruction of land for more mines being dug. Most (roughly 20% of the population and another 40% indirectly) turn to tin mining for their work, as it has double the income that farming or most other jobs in Bangka or Belitung provide. Owners of tin mining operations, legal or illegal, earn more than the workers, as they are usually the middlemen who sell on the tin their employees have gathered to smelters, but it is still not much compared to the pay standards set by developed countries. The tin mining that occurs in Bangka Island and Belitung Island gives returns of $98.3 million in New Zealand dollars to Indonesia every year, making up a large part of its economy. The workers in Bangka and Belitung, however, get a very small cut of this, only being paid $11.70 in NZ currency, which is barely enough to support living costs for themselves and their families, for each day they risk their lives to provide tin that is used by almost every other person in the world but them, usually in the form of solder used in electronic devices. Technology companies such as Apple and Samsung are some of the biggest users of Indonesian tin, and it is difficult for them to find out whether it was ethically sourced, or if it brings negative effects upon the labourers who mine it, because of the lack of legislation and transparency around Bangka and Belitung tin mining.
