KABWE - One of the largest lead mines in the world closes in 1994. Local people in Kabwe, a metropolis in Zambia, see jobs disappear. They are left uninvited with a mountain of harmful mining waste and residential areas polluted by lead.
To this day, the wind spreads polluting lead particles across the poor western part of the city. In those neighbourhoods, lead levels are measured in children up to 20 times higher than the internationally permissible maximum. But the mountain of mining waste also creates jobs. Every day, people go illegally into the contaminated mine waste in search of precious minerals in the hope of earning money to survive. Tom Van Assche and Kobe Goderis went to the old mine site and the polluted neighbourhoods to listen to the stories of people experiencing the consequences of these years of pollution.
TELEVISION
- Toxic Town, Vranckx, VRT/Canvas (Belgian public broadcaster), 22/10/2022.
