The research Results Published online, radiation scientists recovered bits of radioactive material, Cobalt-60, from the Mayapuri scrap market in Delhi early April after eight people complained of radiation disease. ##safetyfirst #uwsca #unsafeworkplace

These are some hard workers than are being underpaid and posioned with chemicals. They are getting deseases and losing there good health conditions to provide for there familys we need to do soemthing about it. Spread the awarness of what they go trough. #safetyfirst #uwsca #unsafeworkplace

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Some junkyard workers ' clothes contained traces of the toxic metal and blood samples were taken from more than 200 employees to check if they had been exposed. #safetyfirst #uwsca #unsafeworkplace

"Lessons need to be learned urgently," said S.K.Malhotra, a senior official at the Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC), the leading nuclear research institute in the western city of Mumbai. #safetyfirst #uwsca #unsafeworkplace

Cobalt-60 absorbed by the liver, kidney, and bone tissue can cause cancer to gamma radiation from internal exposure. Misuse of a large industrial Co-60 source could result in a large enough external exposure to cause skin burns, radiation sickness or even death. #safetyfirst #uwsca #unsafeworkplace

The risk of ship breaking is a disease caused by exposure to hazardous substances. These employees, due to accidents, are also at high risk of injury. Falling steel or machinery saved parts may result in severe injury and death. Electric shocks, fires and explosions can also occur

Check out this one on child labor.

Here is our Philipines Unsafe working conditions awareness post on Instagram.

Go check it out!

Corruption in Small Scale Gold Mining governments

The Small Scale Gold industry is ruining communities everywhere in many different ways that have taken a turn for the worst. In Peru and the Philippines third world regions have become wastelands creating a huge impact sending the communities to take a turn for the worst. 

In the Philipines, the government has turned their backs toward child labor and hazardous working conditions. No one is doing anything to get this unfortunate kid out of gold mining and into their classrooms. In my opinion, children are the most important investment the Philippines should be making. If the Philippines makes an effort to give their kids a good education they will be the ones to lift the country out of poverty and even solve this small scale gold mining crisis. It will take them out of their terrible child labor situation and bring them into more profitable work and much safer work when they are adults. 

In Peru the situation is a little different. Small Scale gold mining has turned the amazon rainforests into desert mercury wastelands in the region of La Pampa. This region is totally corrupted and was birthed off the money of illegal gold mining. These towns have zero-order and have sex trafficking, hired killings disappearance of people and much, more illegal activity. Since the region is right against a very important nature reserve that is very important to Peru. So the government took explicit charge. They deployed military and police officers to raid the towns and gold mines. The rescued 40 sex-trafficked women and arrested many men for illegal gold mining or illegal activities. They have also started to set up military bases to keep out this illegal gold mining from the desert wasteland so they can start rebuilding the environment. 

The problem that has occurred is that they are telling everyone to leave the town since it was birthed off illegal money. The amount of residents staying at La Pampa is 25000. This many people cause for an angry mob. What I think the government should do is provide these people with housing somewhere else. This way it is just relocation instead of eviction. The people can bring their businesses with them instead of leaving them behind. This will create a community free from the mass amounts of illegal activity and leave behind the old desert ghost towns once filled with menacing criminals. This would help promote a safe work environment all around and stop asgm.

Small Scale Gold Mining

The Philippines government is offering zero support in helping the people in need working in these nonfunctional Gold mines. The government has made it illegal to mine underwater with a compressor and has also made child labor illegal. Unfortunately, no one at all enforces this law. There have even been instances where the small scale gold mines pay the police a little of their share so they don’t report any illegal activity. The Philippines government has also signed off on the Minamata mercury treaty which states that all high exposure of mercury must stop and be executed in a safe way in which people aren't exposed to mercury in any way. The Government still hasn’t ratified the treaty so the high amounts of mercury exposure still hasn't changed in any way.

The small scale gold mining workforce releases a total of 400 metric tonnes of mercury into the atmosphere a year. This is strikingly concerning for the people who are close to residents of these small scale gold mines. People simply do not have the treatment for these extreme health defects because most of the small scale gold mines are in third world areas /countries. 

The gold miners also use mercury and leave it in huge deposits that become tailings. These big tailings can flow into rivers and can lead to the wrong places. They can lead to rivers that flow right through houses and rivers where children play in. The mercury can flow into their food chain and cause pose a real danger. In Peru, small scale gold miners have turned the amazon into mercury wastelands. A common fish called the mota catfish is at the top of its food chain in Peru and it consumes all the mercury the smaller species consume. If a person eats two servings of this fish the person is consuming 7 and a half times the safe limit of mercury according to the world health organization. Children also sometimes play or pan gold in these rivers that are highly contaminated by mercury. This mass amount of mercury use is hurting all walks of life. The habitat surrounded by the mines, the people using the mercury to separate the gold from the dirt, Residents of these small scale gold mining towns, and the food chain their eating. It's a terrible issue that poses many health defects and even death that has been ruining people's lives for too long and it needs to be ended.

Children Gold Mining in the Philipines

The epidemic of small scale gold mining has gone way too far. Even though it is a great source of income for people living in these third world countries it has become an extremely dangerous job that puts these people's lives at risk. The small scale gold mining workforce in the Philippines produces 70% of all the gold in the Philippines. Human Rights Watch has done the story a story about 65 children, yes children working in these gold mines. In these stories, Human Rights Watch shows children leaving school to work with their parents in these gold mines because it's the only source of real income they can find. Even though child labor is illegal in the Philippines, the Philippines government doesn’t do anything to enforce this law on small scale gold mining sites. If the Philippines wants to get out of poverty an easy fix is to educate their children so they can bring the Philippines out of their poverty. 

When these children get to the mines after sometimes a three-hour walk they may go to the underwater gold mines. They go into the bacteria-filled water that often gives them skin infections with nothing but a mask and a tiny tube at the surface that feeds them air from the compressor at the surface. The compressor is powered by a motor that gives off carbon monoxide making the air they breathe contaminated with high amounts of this deadly toxin.They usually plunge into 15-30 foot deep water. The kids get scared when it's their first time to dive into these underwater mines and that causes them to suffocate or come up too fast which gives them decompression sickness that can create air bubbles in your blood flow. Decompression sickness can lead to rashes, extreme fatigue, and joint pain. That’s not the worst of it either the actual mines at these small scale gold mines can be around 60 feet deep wich makes the air too thin to breathe. This means the mines must have a blower to provide air. Two brothers were mining in these deep caves when they suffocated to death because it was not yet ventilated by a blower. 

To extract the gold from the ore the workers use mercury. They put the toxic mercury into there pan and mix it around until the gold and mercury separate from the sand creating an amalgam. They then take this amalgam and put it into a pot burn it with an open flame. The mercury evaporates from the amalgam creating a gas that all people in the area of breath in. This is a major risk for kids and even adults in many ways. First, the gas can be breathed into children’s still developing nervous system and into their brains, causing brain damage and even death. Adults are vulnerable to this risk.