#Rio Tinto

[humanjeff]

a tiny problem

this probably hasn't made the news in other countries - huge mining company Rio Tinto managed to lose this little capsule (8 x 6 mm) somewhere in West Australia:

it's caesium-137, the stuff that has made Chernobyl uninhabitable, and you don't want to be standing within 5-10 meters of it, because it's blasting out beta and gamma rays. you REALLY don't want to pick it up, because it'll give you radiation burns.

what's nuts is it seems to have somehow escaped from its "secure" container and fallen out of a bolt hole while being transported, and then nobody noticed for TWO WEEKS.

anyway there are fire fighters on their sixth day of scouring 1,400 km (!) of desert road right now, but it's so small that it may never be found (I think the detection radius with the equipment they're using is maybe 20m). it's so small that it could have stuck in a car's tire treads, or been picked up by an unfortunate bird or other wildlife. it has a half-life of 30 years, which means it'll be dangerously radioactive for centuries.

it's just an incredible fuckup on so many levels.

[amons-hat-enthusiast]

A petition to stop Rio Tinto’s mine from destroying Serbia’s nature

"We call upon you to prohibit extractive mining projects and metal processing in the Jadar Valley in Serbia.

In particular, we demand that you cancel the proposed Rio Tinto lithium mine in Loznica. We demand that you protect the biodiversity, fertile ground, farming villages and rich cultural areas.

Serbia’s most fertile land can be found in the beautiful Jadar Valley. Small family farmers grow raspberries and plums, engage in beekeeping and sheep and goat herding. The valley borders mountains, is surrounded by water and home to thousands of sustainable multi-generational farms.

But instead of protecting it, the Serbian government has approved a project with multinational mining corporation Rio Tinto, for the exploitation of “Jadarite”, a lithium ore in the valley. The government and the company have ignored scientists and mining experts who advise vehemently against the mine and are threatening to cause irreparable damage to the water, land, air and it’s people. Local citizens, who do not want to give up their sustainable agricultural land which has been in their families for generations, are being ignored.

The process of separating chemically stable lithium from jadarite ore involves the use of concentrated sulfuric acid. The process would take place 20 km from the Drina River and use 300 cubic meters of water every hour, while the chemically treated water would be returned to the Jadar River.

The outpouring of inevitably polluted water, as well as underground waters which contain arsenic, mercury and lead, would contaminate entire river basins and continue their journey across the Jadar to the Drina and Sava, polluting not only Serbia's but other countries' water sources as well.

We reject the pollution of the air. Treatment with the above mentioned (and additional) aggressive acids produces toxic gases that can spread within a radius of over ten kilometers and which will corrode the skin and lungs of humans and animals.

We reject the endangerment of the population around the Jadar Valley in the interests of a multinational corporate profit. Rio Tinto has promised 700 new jobs, but forgot to mention that 19,000 people are set to be displaced or severely effected.

Rio Tinto in 2020, destroyed a 45,000 year old sacred Australian Aboriginal cave. The company and its representatives have been repeatedly convicted of fraud and paid billions of dollars in damages and fines for illegal destruction of land, but continue to ravage and destroy natural environment around the world. The company is accused of participating in war crimes in Papua New Guinea, where a ten-year civil war broke out due to the presence of their mine.

The citizens of Serbia have the right to clean air, clean water and healthy living conditions. Stop Rio Tinto’s lithium mine and protect the people, our heritage, our environment and the rivers of the Jadar Valley. United we can save our environment."

https://action.wemove.eu/sign/2023-03-stop-rio-tinto-EN?akid=s1568260..uAF-ha

The text above explains the situation. This is a very important petition and I'd be very grateful if you could sign it and spread it.

(I see that only people from European countries can sign it, others please reblog for this to reach as many people as possible)

[kalinq0]

If I didnt know better i would think Vuk is making these

Fuck rio tinto

[thoughtlessarse]

A government U-turn on a blocked lithium mining project immediately followed by an agreement to supply the EU with critical raw materials has triggered a wave of protest across Serbia Just days before signing a cooperation agreement with the EU on critical raw materials supply, Serbia gave the renewed go-ahead for Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto to develop what could be Europe’s largest lithium reserves — but further delay looks possible as a fresh wave of protests sweeps the country. The Jadar mining project had been on hold since 2022 when Belgrade withdrew approval for a spatial plan for the 250-hectare site amid widespread public opposition. But after a constitutional court ruled the move unlawful earlier this month, the government headed by President Aleksandar Vučić promptly adopted a decree on 16 July allowing the project to restart immediately. Three days later, European Commission Vice-President Maroš Šef��ovič inked a "strategic partnership" at a summit in the Serbian capital attended by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, with both of them at pains to stress that environmental standards would be paramount — but this appears not to have assuaged the concerns of local environmental activists.

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[colorsoutofearth]

Red waters of the Rio Tinto, coloured by dissolved minerals, primarily iron

Photos by Juan Carlos Munoz

[kickassfu]

The world at 4am. Perfectly quiet and empty.

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[protoslacker]

[T]he interdependence of all life within Country constitutes a hard but essential lesson – those who destroy their Country ultimately destroy themselves.

Deborah Bird Rose quoted in an article by Sarah Holcombe and Bronwyn Fredericks in The Conversation. Beyond Juukan Gorge, the relentless threat mining poses to the Pilbara cultural landscape

Holcombe and Bronwyn cite Rose's 1996 paper Nourishing Terrains; Australian Aboriginal views of Landscape and Wilderness, Australian Heritage Commission, Canberra.

Deborah Bird Rose died in 2018. Here is a link to an obituary by Eben Kirksey from The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology.

[neuromangler]

[xipiti]

Good news everyone!

Authorities in Western Australia said Wednesday they had found a tiny capsule containing radioactive material that went missing during transport last month on an Outback highway.

The round, silver capsule — measuring roughly a quarter of an inch in diameter by a third of an inch tall, or the size of the pea — was found south of the mining town of Newman on the Great Northern Highway. It was detected by a search vehicle when specialist equipment picked up radiation emitting from the capsule.

Portable search equipment was then used to locate it about 2 meters (6.5 feet) from the side of the road.

The search operation spanned 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) from the Outback to metropolitan Perth and yielded success in just seven days.

[aardvaark]

so the tiny radioactive capsule that fell out of a truck in Western Australia was found, luckily on open road rather than near any communities. but you know what the maximum punishment for mishandling radioactive material like that is in WA? a $1000 fine. which even the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said was ridiculous. Rio Tinto just has to give over $1000 for something that very much could’ve killed or seriously injured people. that’s like $708 USD. and Rio Tinto (the mining company you might know from blowing up Aboriginal sacred sites with 46,000 year old arts) is not going to give a shit about $1000 bucks. what the fuck

[faultfalha]

The Serious Fraud Office has unexpectedly shut down its investigations into corruption at Rio Tinto and ENRC. The decision has shocked the business world, and left many wondering what could have prompted such a drastic move. Some fear that this may be the beginning of a cover-up, as the SFO has refused to provide any further information.

[oxalis-triangularis]

They found the lost radioactive capsule!!!

2 meters from the road, it was 6mm by 8mm and lost somewhere along its 1400km journey. Honestly surprised they found it this quickly, yet good going.

[thoughtlessarse]

Bloated and distorted carcasses shimmered on the surface of Lake Ambavarano in southeastern Madagascar. Forty-year-old fisherman Olivier Randimbisoa lost count as they floated by. “I know what it’s like to see a dead fish that’s been speared,” he said. “I’d never seen anything like this.” A series of cyclones and storms had battered the region in early 2022, and in the days afterward, the air was still and calm. As Randimbisoa paddled around in his dugout canoe, he recognized the different species and called them by their local names: fiambazaha, saroa, vily, and malemiloha. Overnight, the fish he made his living from, the fish his wife and children ate, the fish that supported the entire lakeside community, were nearly gone. “It was scary, because we have been eating fish from this lake for so long. We have fed our families, and now it’s polluted,” said Randimbisoa. “We have told our families not to go to the lake.” Randimbisoa has a theory about what killed the fish. “It’s dirty water from the factory of QMM,” he said. Lake Ambavarano, where Randimbisoa works, is connected to two other lakes — Besaroy and Lanirano — through a series of narrow waterways. The lakes are adjacent to QIT Madagascar Minerals, or QMM: a mine in Madagascar that’s 80 percent owned by the Anglo-Australian mining and metals behemoth Rio Tinto, and 20 percent by the government of Madagascar. The mine extracts ilmenite, a major source of titanium dioxide, which is mainly used as a white pigment in products like paints, plastics, and paper. QMM also produces monazite, a mineral that contains highly sought-after rare-earth elements used to produce the magnets in electric vehicles and wind turbines. After the fish deaths, the government of Madagascar’s environmental regulator and Rio Tinto conducted water sampling work. Citing such testing, Rio Tinto says there is no proof that its mining killed the fish. Water sample analysis revealed “no conclusive link between our mine activities and the observed dead fish by community members,” a company spokesperson wrote in an email to The Intercept. Those results have not been made available to the public, despite requests by civil society groups and The Intercept.

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Rio Tinto is the company that destroyed the sacred caves used by Aborigines, the 46,000-year-old Juukan Gorge rock shelters, to mine iron ore.

[colorsoutofearth]

Rio Tinto

Photo by Jose B Ruiz