Rubber tires — a dirty business | DW Documentary

Summer is vacation time here in Germany most car owners still prefer to drive even to distant vacation destinations when it comes to road safety

tires

are of course of utmost importance. In Germany alone, more than 50 million are sold each year. It is a multi-million dollar

business

. But where do these

tires

come from and under what conditions are they manufactured? The tires on my family car are no longer at their best. They are aging and a little brittle. The need to replace them before a family vacation has made me think about the origin and sustainability of tires on the market Greifen Stiebling a family

business

is one of the largest independent distributors in western Germany.

I would like to buy a set of new summer tires and would like some advice. The store stocks standard brands. They are all good quality, but I have a different question in mind. Can I tell where a tire was produced? It's possible. Yes, made in China, Japan. Tires from the Czech Republic are clearly produced all over the world. Are customers interested in what condition the tires are in? to be honest, customers are not interested in sustainability, how tires are produced for us is of course an important factor, but very few customers are interested, to be honest, but the sales consultant is convinced that their products meet sustainability standards, so you could buy any of these with a clear conscience.

Big manufacturers put a lot of importance on sustainability, so I think it would be better to stick with them because you can be sure that they are aware of environmental issues, so I think you can buy them. tires with a clear conscience we want to make our own evaluation and that is why we are heading to Southeast Asia Thailand is the world's largest producer of natural

rubber

. More than 4 million tons have been harvested from its plantations each year for the last 30 years. Production here has increased. grown by 300 percent Bangkok is the center of the

rubber

trade.

We'll meet journalist v.interrupt, who has written extensively about the industry, including from the car. It's clear what a big role the tire industry plays in Thailand, after all, it's not just about natural rubber. They are produced here, but many tires are also shipped all over the world in containers, but it is not easy to take a look inside the business here, as the rubber industries play an important role in the Thai economy, so I think the people in this industry may want to keep some secret with them, so it is quite difficult to get information from them.

Our first stop is in the Kau Kamau district, southeast of Bangkok. Large quantities of rubber are grown here. Thanks to these contacts, we get access to one of the plantations. The owner inherited the plantation from his parents. In the past, this area was a rainforest. My parents cleared the entire area and started cultivating it. First, they planted rice and sugar cane, but then they changed the plantation. It starts right behind your house for the first time we see how rubber is harvested Strips of rubber latex come from an incision in the bark of a tree Can be harvested in liquid form or by adding vinegar like they do here to solidify rubber and harvesting it into solid pieces employs more than 50 workers on their plantation, later we will find out what kind of conditions they live in at Bowser Pot.

He has just planted new rubber trees despite a glut in the market that has caused a constant drop in the price per kilo from which we used to make good money. our rubber, if the plantation owner himself is feeling the pinch, what happens to his workers at the edge of the plantation? We found their decrepit huts All the workers come from neighboring Cambodia They are willing to work for lower wages than the ties I work 12 hours a day 5 days a week Sometimes it has fallen longer into the night on Bowser's plantation It is the best time to harvest rubber Cambodians are getting ready to go to work their night shift starts at eight in the afternoon and ends around five in the morning with only flashlights to illuminate themselves cut deeper and deeper grooves in the tree trunks so that the milky latex keep flowing now she has been working on the plantation with her family for the last seven years the 23 year old girl does not know how to read or write I earn very little here between 4,000 and 5,000 a month hard night shifts for only 140 euros a month, that is, approximately half the minimum wage in Thailand, which is not generous at all.

The family always meets at five in the morning to eat, but sometimes they have to be away during the rainy season. I can't work and I don't get paid so we often have nothing to eat and have to go hungry when it's daylight nah's daughter goes to school she can only see her mother briefly the rest of the family goes away the bed only has two mattresses shared between eight family members outside it is his brother his job today spraying herbicide he is using the extremely toxic product paraquat long banned in Europe he feels safe wearing a mask what the 25-year-old does not What you realize is that paraquat can also be absorbed through the skin and can cause serious kidney, liver and heart damage.

There is no way you should work without protective clothing and in shorts, but no one has told you that before the harvest we have to kill the grass with poisonous chemicals, otherwise the snakes could hide in the grass between the trees and bite us like that. This is what it looks like before the herbicide is used and this is what it looks like after the chemicals remain in the soil for months not a single worker here wears protective gloves after the harvest boasts he sells his rubber to the woman who controls the trade in the area a broker she dictates the price as tradition says he has no right to negotiate from here we send the latex to our partner factory for processing and then our rubber is sent to Many well-known companies, such as Goodyear, for example, will We ask which factory it supplies.

He calls to ask if he can reveal his name, but the company prefers to remain anonymous. We decided to follow a truck. We want to know who processes the rubber on our trip. ends up outside the gates of the Tai Hua Rayong rubber factory, which is mainly in Chinese hands, we ask for permission to film, but we are immediately rejected and told in very clear terms that a written request from above is also meaningless, it is possible get a If we have an idea of ​​the scale of the factory that supplies the processed product to manufacturers around the world, we unexpectedly have the opportunity to see a rubber factory, although it is considerably smaller.

The owner shows us her company, which also supplies tai hua riyang rubber, among others, and mainly processes. liquid latex the workers here are not Cambodians we ask them if they receive the minimum wage of 9000 baht around two hundred and sixty euros I earn five thousand baht a month but when the price of rubber rises again I could earn twenty thousand they are still waiting for better times for the minimum wage It's nine thousand baht but these people can never have nine thousand a month no because we don't pay like a newspaper we pay for the data we like let's say 50 50 what but we said we can sell like we can sell like um 2 000 they get 1000 we we get 1000 as owner so employees are not employees but they get a share of the profits.

It's that easy to lower Thailand's meager minimum wage. Behind the factory is the factory's own rubber plantation among the trees. In a ramshackle hut not far away we met an old couple collecting rubber. I'm over 80 years old and I've been working here for 50 years back then the old man was the boss and the plantation was high in the mountains. my wife lives in extreme poverty while the tire industry has global sales of more than 1.2 billion car tires, we decided to take on the renowned tire manufacturers based in Thailand, but the Japanese multinational Bridgestone, the largest producer of tires in the world, rejects our interview request none of the manufacturers are willing to reveal their suppliers.

We tried the German company Continental, which recently opened a new production plant near the city of Ryong. We contacted them several times before our arrival to request an interview, but most requests went unanswered, as did this one, Continental. based in Hannover is the fourth largest tire producer in the world and therefore has a particular responsibility in determining working conditions in the sector. We heard that the living conditions of people in the rubber plantations in neighboring Cambodia are even worse than in Thailand, so we decided to get there from the capital Phnom Penh, we traveled north, as in Thailand, there are plantations of rubber as far as the eye can see, with the help of our interpreter we tried to arrange a visit to a rubber processing plant, we made several requests for written permission for film and although we do not understand that we are also allowed to see the production here, the rubber natural is delivered in solid or liquid form, the people who run the factory tell us that they supply their product to all parts of the world in the season we have. work from six in the morning until ten at night sometimes less when there is nothing to do workers stay across the street often mothers, fathers and their older children work together in the factory or in the company's own plantation is a difficult task.

Factory workers are usually in better conditions than plantation workers. Here they even have their own bathroom and a good kitchen. We normal workers normally earn around 150 a month at the factory for a seven day week. In addition, we have this accommodation, free electricity. and 20 kilos of rice a month in high season we sometimes earn 250 dollars a month we travel to the province of ratanakiri in the northeast of cambodia here many indigenous communities live together in villages and cultivate the land one of these villages is kak or tanli-rio San until recently the people here worked their fields and lived modestly but well according to their own traditions, but those times are gone, their fertile fields were practically stolen from them, large international companies bought the land from the government that had been in the territory of the community. hands for generations in the midst of the global hunger for natural rubber the villagers' fields were plowed to plant rubber trees today the community has lost almost everything, but we did not have the opportunity, everything was taken from us many families have nothing to eat The boss from the village and a sixty-five year old pujan shows us his land here where his crops once grew.

We found a lunar landscape ready to plant new rubber trees. The company seized our fields and graves and now they have even stripped our sacred mountain. The people of refused to work for these new masters in their own fields, like many other towns, they demand the return of their lands but do not have much hope, meanwhile new settlements have emerged in their fields, they house women and men who They have moved to the area to work in the rubber plantations, they too live in desperate conditions. Each year, the rubber crop in Cambodia grows by six to seven percent and the end of this growth is not seen at the edge of the plantation, the next field. it is burned to clear vegetation and make room for more rubber trees for more rubber for car tires we have seen enough and we fly back to germany to confront the tire industry with our findings we try our luck again at the continental headquarters in In 2018, Hannover, the automobile supplier, had a turnover of 44.4 billion euros.

Nobody here wants to be interviewed, but at least they answer some of our questions in writing. Continental consciously uses natural products and develops, promotes and implements sustainable and responsible sourcing of natural products. rubber throughout the value chain continues the declaration continental is aware of its responsibility and aims to make an active and responsible contribution to promoting sustainably produced natural rubber continental also refers to its code of conduct since 2011 all our suppliers have had to agree to comply with our code of conduct for business partners we continue to frankfurt to the german rubber manufacturers association wdk many tire manufacturers are among its members it is based in a villa in the city center boris engelhardt is the general director of wdk The pressure group also has a code of conduct.

It sounds good at first, the wdk and its members recognize their social responsibility with their own company, with customers and suppliers, with the environment and with thesociety, the actions of companies are guided in particular by the values ​​of integrity and justice for which this code of conduct exists. Some time ago it provided the basis for this sustainability charter which stipulates that we are responsible for the people who work in this rubber value chain, but we cannot influence everything, down to the farmer; some farmers would then reach the first step. of traders, but there are seven other traders below them, so you never get to the farmer, in the end we showed boris engelhardt our pictures of the rubber plantations, that's shocking, it's definitely shocking, I can't find any excuse or explanation for that, now we definitely have to do it. we look to the future as continental the other market leaders bridgestone and michelin also do not want to grant us an interview we try our luck in hannah near frankfurt where the third largest tire manufacturer in the world goodyear is based but we are not successful here goodyear simply responds with a statement written, Goodyear does not buy natural rubber from Cambodia.

We source less than five percent of our global natural rubber needs from Thailand. Keep going. We are committed to the responsible sourcing of raw materials, including natural rubber. The statement continues. We offer. Retreading tires for commercial vehicles and airplanes reducing the use of natural rubber, but why does Goodyear retread tires for commercial vehicles and airplanes and not the tires for private cars that make up the vast majority of vehicles we visit? Germany's only major car retreader. Here the worn treads are removed from the tires and replaced with new ones, this is a sure start. If we look at this tire, we can see that only its surface is worn, so essentially the product is discarded when only about 20 percent is worn.

That is absurd in Germany, there is no legal obligation to recycle. tires Obike Julius has to source most of the old tires he needs from France or Spain. What happens to used tires in Germany? There are various methods of disposal, but normally the tires are shredded and supplied to cement factories that burn them as fuel, but now because we have a surplus of old tires some cement factories have stopped accepting them or instead of paying them they are paid to use them as fuel in Germany about 200,000 tons of old tires go up in smoke every year while more and more rubber plantations are being destroyed is being established in Southeast Asia to satisfy the rubber hunger Of course, the retreading process also requires fresh rubber , but 70 to 80 percent less than what is needed to produce new tires, that is, a tire that has been produced in exactly the same way as a new tire. the production steps were identical we have to meet identical legal requirements we comply with international standards we have the same speed ratings these tires have to match the new ones in every way the retreaded tires have an image problem as Obika Julius knows very well a local The authorities called a tender to equip police vehicles with winter tires and in this tender retreading was categorically ruled out, although the Government always maintains that it attaches importance to sustainability and to this day no one has been able to explain to me what data or The facts on which this decision was based would also interest us to know why the police in the city of Weklinghausen decided not to retread tires and here too our request for an interview was rejected.

Instead, they issue a written statement about the emergency calls our vehicles encounter. situations, police cars have to be able to withstand greater stresses than normal vehicles on the road, but the police in Recklinghausen do not say why a retread would not be up to the job We travel to the state of Schleswigstein, in the north of Germany, one of the few in Germany. independent tire testing laboratories we have an appointment with an expert peter kleingan the recklinghausen police say they can't use retreads because they don't meet their high specifications can this be true? No, we have been testing new tires for decades if a retread is produced from a high quality worn tire then it will match the performance of a new tire and the police and general public should consider the environmental and financial arguments in favor of retreading.

We can definitely say that modern retreading plants in Europe are so advanced that their products can compete with new tires. This time I decided to go with retreads and I wonder how my shop will respond. First of all, the tires need to be balanced 30 30. What does that mean? Basically, they can be balanced easily. There are some. Big name brands that aren't that good. I'm curious to see how they perform on the road this time. I have chosen sustainability. I am also sure that they are safe and I go out with my family with peace of mind. vacation you