‘Mining communities bear the burden of disease’ 9 July 2020

If the mining industry was forced to account for and reverse the environmental damage it causes, it would not be financially viable. It is only through the externalisation of the costs of the destruction of farming lands and forests, the contamination and overuse of water sources, and the pollution of the air we breathe that the mining industry can generate its profits…Many miners still do not receive an actual “living wage” – the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) campaign for a minimum wage of R12 500 per month. In addition, social and economic conditions in most mining communities in South Africa remain appalling. Most mineworkers live in overcrowded informal housing and lack access to land, water, sanitation and health services. 

In particular, the burdens of ill health, often the result of – or greatly exacerbated by – mining, such as tuberculosis, silicosis or HIV and Aids, have been largely shouldered by families in mining communities. Even when mines have acted on health issues, such as the decision to roll out antiretrovirals (ARVs) in the early 2000s, this only took place, as historian Shula Marks shows us, after mining companies realised that illness, deaths and strike action over the drugs would cost the industry more than it would to roll them out. 

…It is in this context that Covid-19 arrived in South Africa. While much has been written about its substantial dangers to miners because of the respiratory issues that plague them, there has been significantly less focus on members of mining communities. This is despite research which shows that they too suffer from many of the same respiratory conditions that make miners so vulnerable to Covid-19. The silica-rich airborne particulate matter (which contains differing mixtures of cadmium, manganese, gold, arsenic and lead, among others) that is so damaging to miners’ respiratory systems regularly blows through mining communities throughout South Africa…Despite this court order, community concerns have once again been ignored. While community organisations were invited to make submissions on the draft guidelines produced by the mineral resources department, none of their key submissions, such as screening, testing and track-and-trace to be compulsory in communities near mines, have been adopted.