How People Risk Their Lives Hunting For Gems, Pearls, and Gold | Risky Business | Insider News

thank you [Music] it takes skill and back-breaking work to create the jewelry we wear in Afghanistan miners blew up mountains and Dodge the Taliban to find emeralds and tourmaline and workers in Sri Lanka hunt for valuable Gems by crawling inside deep tunnels where it's hard to breathe we traveled across the world to see how pearls Sapphires and even reclaimed gold get to the jewelry store our first stop is Pakistan where people look through sewers for tiny pieces of gold every day Samuel heads to the largest jewelry market in rawal Bindi before it opens he Scoops out buckets of waste from the drain and sips through it [Applause] he's hunting for scraps of gold discarded by Jewelers when they grind down larger pizzas foreign foreign takes these home and uses acid and heat to clear off the dirt and other metals sometimes he even finds bigger pieces like a gold ring that could earn him as much as 10 000 rupees or 116 dollars but that's on a good day workers usually make just eight dollars today all he found was this little piece he's going to sell it to Artisans who make gold jewelry which is extremely popular in Pakistan and is considered a status symbol s when the market closes down Samuel and other workers go back to the streets hoping to find hidden treasures among the trash our next stop is Sri Lanka where miners have hunted precious gems for over 2500 years [Music] has lived his whole life in ratnapura which translates to the city of gems [Music] morning ritual includes preparing Beetle leaf and tobacco workers chew on the stimulant all day long for energy [Music] [Applause] [Music] the pit is 40 feet deep [Applause] [Applause] the nearby River often seeps in dumping sand soil and water into the tunnels some underground mines are even deeper than the water table so workers need to constantly run a pump to drain the bed but the muddy water is often damped on the surrounding land and could make it unfit for farming this video was filmed during a particularly heavy rainy season that's why the tunnels are even more flooded than usual and that can cause them to collapse in 2015 four people were killed in ratnapura when a mine caved in foreign to reinforce the pit miners use logs from local rubber trees they peel off the bark which can trap moisture and make the wood rot easily [Music] then they gather a local Fern called kekela foreign [Music] there are around 6 000 active mines in Sri Lanka all are privately owned but need licenses from the national Gem and jewelry Authority take over a year to clear out all the gems from a single bit today there are about 11 people crammed in here the lack of oxygen makes it difficult to breathe so they use air pumps to ventilate the channel through these tubes gases like methane are also naturally produced here zero [Music] years of experience have taught them to guess the direction of the deposits [Music] [Applause] thank you [Music] [Music] workers pack the gravel into sacks that can weigh up to 45 pounds [Music] foreign [Music] the gravel in a nearby stream to remove mud and sand ers [Music] majority of the stones are worth nothing on average miners like summer and aikage earn a basic salary of 1200 rupees per week that's about three dollars and in Sri Lanka it's enough to buy about a gallon of milk but when they find a precious gem they hand it over to the mine owners who sell it to middlemen um foreign is bursting with gemstones because of the area's geological Foundation underground rocks here are subjected to high levels of heat and pressure that changes their chemical and physical composition often creating gemstones heavy rains landslides and rivers can move these deposits and carry them Downstream [Music] so miners also look for stones in the kalu Ganga [Music] they create a scaffolding and dive to the bottom to dig them up or they use blades attached to wooden poles called mammothies that can cause extensive damage to riverbeds it's why mines like these are more heavily regulated by the country's gem Authority experts say underground pits are also harmful miners remove native vegetation when they clear out the land and some pits aren't filled back in once mining is complete causing accidents the industry as a whole employs nearly a hundred thousand Sri Lankans [Applause] sold at wholesale markets like this one in ratnapura [Music] aturalia gamma gays Workshop has been around since 2002. workers cut the gems with a machine called a hanapuruva is the smaller pieces are later shaped and Polished into individual gems [Music] a one carat blue sapphire from Sri Lanka can range from 450 dollars to sixteen hundred dollars depending on the four C's color cut Clarity and carrot or weight the largest star sapphire in the world was found in ratnapura in 2016. it's called the star of Adam and it's worth 300 million dollars what Global demand is growing the gems are still refined in a traditional way [Music] at this Workshop in ratnapura Sunil is using a centuries-old technique to enhance the color of the gems [Music] he places them on colds as hot as 2000 degrees Fahrenheit then he blows on the Embers for several hours which Alters the color and clarity Artisans say this method has been used for more than 1500 years but Sri Lanka's gem mining industry is much older Jewels adorned Thrones of Sri Lankan royalty from 540 BC Kings from the island often send gems to foreign lands to establish trade in relationships Venetian explorer Marco Polo even mentioned the gems in his journals [Applause] but a political and economic crisis has put this historic Jam industry at risk [Applause] thousands of Sri Lankans took part in widespread protests last year and ousted president gotabaya rajapasca they blamed his government for high inflation as prices of food and fuels spiked and that directly affected miners foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] says the work is always unpredictable sometimes miners can go weeks without finding a valuable gem and although Samara naikage has been doing this for decades he wants a different path for his only child um foreign a company has figured out how to extract gold from electronic waste mint Innovation begins with the circuit boards that are inside nearly every electronic device so this is how the electronics circuit boards is how we receive them cut up treated into pieces the company says it sources all raw material from a local recycler exporting waste is an absolutely abhorrent thing for human race to be doing the company's Founders think that if it's easier to get valuable metals from E-Waste countries will choose to deal with it locally through all the golds wrapped up in these chips the first step is to grind the circuit boards into a sand like consistency workers shovel this sand into a reactor which mixes it with inexpensive chemicals those acids and oxidants are pretty commonly available industrial chemicals next machines pump the mixture into a filter press to separate the liquids from the solids this blue fluid contains a high concentration of copper tin and other less valuable metals mint uses electricity to pull out the copper we simply put that through a series of plates pass it over that they have electric current flowing through them and that plates out the Copper from solution the metals that pay the bills or the gold the Palladium the copper and the tin because they're most abundant and most valuable but at this step in mince process Palladium and gold are still stuck in the solids they're harder to dissolve and require another chemical bath for the precious metals you need something a little bit more oomph so that's why we break into two stages the next step in mince process makes it one of a kind and it requires the help of nature we're the first people to use microorganisms to selectively concentrate precious metals we're kind of inventing the whole technology along the way identified these tiny helpers in 2017. through a series of research trips to places like abandoned mines or Fields with Rusty equipment given enough pressure and time microbes seem to find a way to thrive in the environment they collected species of bacteria and fungi that evolved to bond with specific Metals while microorganisms recovered gold they also recover Palladium but these are not pathogens by any streets of the imagination so would I drink a vial of them probably not but I wouldn't drink a vial of a lot of things so over several hours the microbes will gain weight as they absorb precious metal ions and we've now got a concentrated microbial paste that contains a good portion of precious metal when the piece dries out the gold nanoparticles in it start to appear purple gold has this funny property that when it is and small nanoparticles as well I mean golden color have this Hue of Blues to Reds the mixture is ready for the last step so this is where the final bit of magic happens where we burn off the microbial part just leaving the missile part behind that they've captured our product is a gold Rich Ash that goes to a refiner who is the one who turns it into your 99.99 gold takes one week to extract 150 grams of gold from one ton of circuit boards the founders carry around this solid gold coin to show what that looks like is it pure gold that's pure gold super heavy it seems like a lot of work for a small payoff is it really worth the trouble mint's Founders say yes because it's getting harder to mine precious metals from the Earth the big gold mines are recovering literally grams three four five grams of gold from a ton of Rock 81 of gold that's identified today is already above the ground and as gold mines are depleted the amount of E-Waste generated globally has increased steadily over the past decades if those Trends continue by 2050 we'll have to deal with 110 million metric tons of E-Waste every year that's like every person in the world throwing away a countertop microwave up to a fifth of all E-Waste moves across borders likely ending up in developing countries where workers process it by hand at illegal dump sites activist Jim Puckett has spent over 25 years tracking how E-Waste ends up in these toxic environments the entire life cycle of electronics unfortunately disproportionately burdens the global South with the real environmental harm and pollution thousands of people worldwide make a living extracting Copper from E-Waste primarily by burning it inhaling the fumes damages workers lungs and increases their risk for cancer and other illnesses other Studies have found that large E-Waste dumps contaminate water soil and crops foreign is properly recycled the final product still needs to go to a smelter the energy intensive endpoint for most mining operations mint's long-term goal is to make it easy and profitable for cities to process their E-Waste locally we need to kind of get this you know really really cranking throughout the world and that's probably a 20-year Vision the company is planning full-scale facilities in Australia and the United Kingdom this smaller plant in Auckland New Zealand was built to demonstrate how mint's process works it processes about one metric ton of circuit boards per week but larger plants like the one they're building in Australia will process 10 metric tons per day that would make the bigger plant able to process about one percent of all the E-Waste Australia produces annually the planned larger facilities will be almost entirely automated it's pretty light touch for a Personnel perspective might have three people on the shop floor any one time running 24 7. the small number of employees would have limited contact with E-Waste keeping them safe from exposure to toxic compounds however even if mint can realize its dream of a plant in every major city the founders face another problem that's completely out of their control unfortunately electronic waste generally is getting less and less valuable over time as a commodity manufacturers are learning to build gadgets with less precious metal mint's team is researching other types of waste they can run through this process like car parts as for solving the global E-Waste problem Jim Puckett remains skeptical that any form of recycling is the answer I'm not saying don't go ahead with these techniques we're certainly going to have old circuit boards around for a long time and we're gonna have to deal with them so let's move on it but we got to turn off the tap that tap is controlled by the companies who manufacture Electronics most of whom have no legal or financial incentive to design products that can be recycled it's an overflowing bathtub you can't run around with mops and say oh my God we got to mop this up we got to mop that up and we have a better mop here and a better mop there when the tap is pouring water into the bathtub it's overflowing down the stairs this is the problem we have it's the tap of our waste is not being turned back at this Factory in India Artisans make over a million glass Bangles a day but they face stifling hot conditions working next to furnaces and they even inhaled glass particles that can scar their lungs vimal Kumar yadav has been working at the factory for the last 17 years [Music] it all starts with Craftsmen sifting through silica sand which is the main ingredient for Bangles then they add in any scraps of leftover glass like broken bottles or damaged Bangles Tire Factory is filled with tiny glass particles and women are constantly sweeping the broken Bangles from the floor scraps of glass are melted down again and recycled to make new Bangles [Music] but the glass pieces can damage the workers Vision even and no one here wears a mask so they're also breathing in the glass dust study shows that 23 percent of Bengal workers suffer from chronic bronchitis next the mix is melted down in a furnace that reaches 2000 degrees Fahrenheit or hotter Avenue [Music] spite fans roaring the air is stifling here workers keep water to stay hydrated and carry on [Music] 10 hours the glass turns into the runny liquid [Music] it's then mixed with color they contain traces of metals like lead and cadmium and even Mercury and workers are constantly exposed to those fields Craftsmen then move the molten glass to another part of the factory this step can be dangerous and vimal says sometimes accidents happen ing vimal operates this machine that rolls the spirals of the Bangles that's risky too The Bangles are steaming hot when they're removed from this rod but no one's wearing gloves most workers rely on experience to stay safe according to factory owner anshul Gupta a foreign foreign but workers have rejected them in the past e the glass bangle factories of ferozabad are also major polluters the city is about 30 miles away from the Taj Mahal in 2015 authorities said smoke from firozabad was the main reason the white marble of the Taj was turning yellow many Artisans worried that the workshops would be shut down instead the factories were ordered to stop burning coal and use natural gas today 500 000 Craftsmen work in the industry in perozabad at over a hundred workshops glass Bangles are the city's biggest export bringing in 150 million dollars a year in sales [Music] women make six dollars a day toiling away in these small workshops close to the factory delay each bangle over a flame the fire melts the edges and binds the glass together and the bangle is ready to be decorated some of these intricate patterns can take hours to finish this Craftsman is using a special kind of paint to glue several thin Bangles together [Music] a lot of the ornamental work is done at home Often by younger workers who earn very little child labor is banned in the factories kids still help their families when they can [Music] all up kidneys Sony yadav is 18 years old Dali yadav is 15. they're women's two daughters sorry [Music] after an eight hour shift vimal himself makes about nine dollars a day he says it's barely enough to put his four children through school [Music] to make a little more cash on the side vimal tends to buffaloes [Music] foreign foreign he hopes that one day he can start another milk business [Music] for all the risks involved the end product is not expensive yes a set of 12 Bangles can range from 1 to 13 depending on how fancy it is [Music] foreign despite all of the risks vimal says the industry is crucial for everyone in photos about it [Music] here in Afghanistan about three trillion dollars worth of minerals are hidden in these mountains and Habib and his cousins use Dynamite left behind by Decades of War to blast it out the province of kanar was one of the deadliest places in Afghanistan foreign but Habib and his nine cousins grew up around here and know every inch of these mountains Habib hikes for 10 hours to reach a campsite nearly 10 000 feet above sea level they'll live here mining for the next month already foreign Habib first spotted tourmaline in these mountains 25 years ago now with Decades of experience the 55 year old is the leader of his group [Music] and with that short prayer the men are ready to crawl down 300 feet oh [Music] Iraq the veins are actually magma that cooled under high pressure creating emerald and tourmaline there are already 300 feet deep and they can't go any farther without air this narrow tube pumps their oxygen from a ventilator above ground inhaling all this dust can scar workers lungs for life foreign but nothing stops these men today they're going even deeper into the mine because they've gotten everything they can from these walls foreign to get farther into the Bedrock they drill holes and fill them with dynamite foreign the Bedrock that contains the gems is often brittle and could easily collapse with heavy Drilling in 2019 30 miners were buried alive at a gold mine in another province foreign the dynamite is all set now they have less than a minute to get out of this tunnel foreign [Applause] they usually go back in to retrieve the gems but today they left early because they heard the Taliban was on its way during the 20-year War the Taliban and other Insurgent groups operated most of these mines reports suggest they were earning up to 20 million dollars a year smuggling Jewels out of the country and the gems continue to fund the Taliban today after the group regained control of Afghanistan meanwhile people like Habib struggle to find buyers since most countries don't openly trade with Afghanistan um his only option is selling to local Jewelers he divides the money among his workers Habib makes about 140 dollars a month nearly doubled the average salary in this country but he has to feed his wife and 12 children and it's hard to sell his gems for more is has been polishing gems for more than 30 years he learned the craft from his cousin in Pakistan when his family lived there as refugees during the Afghan Civil War but he returned in the early 2000s and set up a workshop with his brothers here in Kabul Ary Works mostly with blue lapis lazuli because foreign [Music] North's younger brother Amir Ahmad shirazad runs the store upstairs foreign [Music] helps out before school [Music] they sell everything from dishes to jewelry and sculptures Amir says he prices items based on the weight of the stones and how long each piece took to me he even sells the type of stone Habib mines foreign and he makes these prayer bead necklaces himself he says business has been tough lately um West minutes away from the mines my friend again he will no longer have to walk 10 hours to get to work while he risks his life hunting for gems it has helped him pay for this new home and Habib is thankful for that um our last stop is the south sea in the Pacific Ocean where Farmers cultivate these perfect pearls that can sell for as much as fifteen hundred dollars South Sea refers to the southern portion of the Pacific Ocean in these Waters just off the coast of lombok Indonesia Pearl Farms like after all Pearl a growing cultured pearls these are pearls that require a human to put something inside an oyster instead of harvesting naturally occurring piles and south sea poles the most expensive variety of cultured pearls that's in part because of how long it takes to make a south sea Pearl while some fresh water oysters can churn out dozens of smaller pearls within three months it takes about five years to cultivate a single South Sea Pearl the oyster egg comes from the pink powder Maxima can only make one at a time and only a fourth of these oysters survive cultivation that's why the Pearl Farmers have to go to Great Lengths to keep the oysters alive it starts in this highly controlled laboratory where lab technicians must create the perfect conditions for oyster larvae to grow into healthy Pearl producing adults they have to maintain a room temperature of exactly 20 degrees Celsius and feeds the larvae the phytoplankton they need to grow to do this they combine salt water from the south sea and sodium hydroxide and store it for five days until there's enough plankton lab techs feed the Plankton to Nets of baby oysters and monitor their growth for about 45 days that's around the time they reach at least one millimeter in diameter and are old enough to be transferred to Sea the oysters are transferred to save on the costs of rearing figure oysters which can get expensive [Music] in the south sea the oysters get the warm Waters and food they need to mature this is also where most of them will die without producing a single Pearl again [Music] that's why Pearl Farmers have to check on the oysters monthly to ensure they're still growing eating and healthy they pull the Nets of oysters up from the sea and clean the shells this helps prevent Predators from feeding off the oysters and eventually killing them foreign [Music] foreign after up to two years of nursing when the oysters are large enough implantation can begin for cultured pearls implantation is the most important step when a nucleus is implanted the oyster sees it as an irritant and reacts by building protective layers of nature around it this becomes the power [Music] Harry is demonstrating where the nucleus is implanted on an opened oyster Russian [Music] there is test the oysters gonads and injects the nucleus in the middle he then adds sibo under the nucleus cybo is a mantle tissue cut from another oyster that surrounds the implanted nucleus it's essential to the Pearl quality and without it the oyster won't produce any Pearls at all Harry is the only person after all trusts with this step that's because the nuclei don't come cheap Mahmoud buys the nuclei from Japan and their cost in addition to import taxes takes 20 percent of his profits and he says getting import permits for these nucleons difficult preventing him from buying enough to expand his business after the nucleus is implanted special attention is paid to how the naked grows around it to avoid a misshapen Pearl they're working towards a large almost perfectly round Pearl workers invert the oysters and put them in their protective Nets to bring back to Sea the south sea piles unique soft satiny luster and thick maker are a result of the warm Waters it grows in and a thick maker means a large Pearl Harry says they must flip them regularly so the naked grows evenly quality days workers remove the oysters from the sea and weekly Harry checks the implanted oysters monthly to see how the Pearl is developing this is done for up to two years before the first pile can be harvested [Music] Harry implants the same oyster two more times each time the Pearl after harvest is bigger by the third harvest the Pearl can reach over 20 millimeters in diameter and over 8 grams in weight but as much as Pearl Farmers like Mahmoud invest in the intense care needed to raise the oysters the outcome is never guaranteed Mahmoud says only 20 of the oysters that survive make the most valuable kind of pearl almost perfectly round lustrous and large Mahmoud grades the pals based on size luster shape and color the larger rounder shinier minimally blemished pearls get the highest grade that can be Triple A or quadruple a depending on the producer Mahmoud then sells them to Jewelers like Rihanna Melia he Fashions the pearls into necklaces earrings and rings Rihanna seeks out the highest grade she can find but it isn't easy it is lower grades are more available but they're rougher asymmetrical and lack shine and in the jewelry World those are the least desirable but even the highest grade pearls are not perfectly round that's because even though they're farmed they're still natural pearls so finding a near-perfect pearl let alone enough to make a string necklace is extremely rare it took nine years for Rihanna to find enough AAA grade pearls to make this necklace she is finally able to sell it this year for 36 000 to a local buyer that makes sourcing these expensive pearls worth it for Rihanna who relies on Farmers to continue to produce high quality pearls but Mahmoud says Pearl Farmers need more support from the government specifically around making nuclei readily available with this kind of support Pearl Farmers say they could increase their production and make Indonesian South Sea pearls more readily available internationally thank you thank you

Channel: Insider News

Views: 1,051,441

Keywords: Insider, News, Risky Business, Jewelry, Gemstones, Metal, Insider News

Id: L3e-D1Gocps

Length: 49min 33sec (2973 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 22 2023