Falling metal prices hurt scavengers
Updated
To commodities, and scrap metal dealers across Asia are feeling the pain of the plummeting price of metals.
Scrap metal is often collected by some of the region's poorest people, though rising prices over the last few years had brought prosperity to some of them. Those economic gains are now being wiped out - although some are still benefitting.
Presenter: Sonia Randhawa
Speakers: Maniarasan Kuppan runs M Ridzwan Metal Trading; Allan Vosburgh, director for explosive safety with the Golden West Humanitarian Foundation
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SONIA RANDHAWA: Aluminium, copper, zinc, nickel and steel prices are at their lowest in over a year, with over a third wiped off most of their prices. In Thailand, the price of scrap metal has dropped from 18 baht to just 2 or 3 baht, or less than 9 cents per kilogram. And local news reports say many scavengers are leaving the business. Added to that, the downturn in Chinese and US manufacturing has eaten away at the market for most metals, so even at the reduced prices, some metal dealers are having difficulty finding buyers. Bigger businesses are also being hit by the falling prices although some of the middle men are seeing opportunities. In Malaysia, scrap-metal dealers are buying metal and stockpiling it. Maniarasan Kuppan runs M Ridzwan Metal Trading.
MANIARASAN KUPPAN: The metal price go down is better. I can hire more and I can stock. I can accumulate quality. For me, lower is better. We can buy metal many, many. The metal price go up, lot of problems.
SONIA RANDHAWA: But the impact on the scavengers can mean more than just reduced income. In Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos scavengers risk their lives to scavenge metal from unexploded bombs left over from the Vietnam War. Allan Vosburgh is the Director for Explosive Safety with the Golden West Humanitarian Foundation. He explains the risks these people face.
ALLAN VOSBURGH: They have a sizeable explosive charge and they are very dangerous. Many of them are completely inert. You could hit them with a hammer and it doesn't make any difference. Others are very sensitive and if you hit them they'll explode. So what happens is the people are out sometimes with metal detectors, sometimes they just take sticks and poke them in the ground, looking for metal fragments. Basically, you know, sometimes in the search for metal fragments, they find sub-munitions and unfortunately when they interact with the sub-munitions sometimes they explode and either badly injure or kill people.
SONIA RANDHAWA: And the reason behind these risks - poverty.
ALLAN VOSBURGH: The bottom line to me is that it has to do with poverty. You know, they're driven to look for scrap metal because it's one of the few ways they have to make money in those areas. If you travel in eastern Cambodia or western Vietnam or on the mountains in those areas there aren't very many ways for people to make money and for young people, especially, it's attractive because the kids, you know, they go out and look for scraps of metal and when they get a bag full they take them and they can trade them in for enough money to buy candy or toys, or, you know, the extra things that they like that their parents can't afford, so that's kind of the thrust of it. Then the next step are professional scrap hunters that are actually out there looking for stuff to make a living.
SONIA RANDHAWA: Mr Vosburgh has proposed solutions to the problem - paying people a premium to identify possible ordnance to bomb disposal experts, for example. But, until these become a reality, the plunging prices are going to drive scavengers into more dangerous territory where metal is more abundant.
ALLAN VOSBURGH: I believe what we'll see - unless there's some intervention of some sort I believe you'll see more people being injured, the price will drive people into more remote areas and probably, you know, it will result in more accidents.
