discover the world. subscribe to documentary on you tube. summertime is vacation time here in germany most car owners still prefer to drive even to distant holiday destinations when it comes to road safety tires are of course of paramount importance more than $50000000.00 are sold each year in germany alone it's a multi-billion dollar business but where did these tires come from and under what conditions are they produced. in.

the tires of my family car well past their prime they're getting older and are a bit brittle and they need to replace them ahead of a family vacation has got me thinking about the origin and sustainability of tires on the market. a family run business is one of the biggest independent dealers in western germany. i'd like to buy a set of new summer tires and want some advice on the store stocks the standard brands they're all good quality but i have a different question on my mind. i just can i tell where a tire was produced is that possible. yes. made in china japan the czech republic tires are clearly produced all around the world. are customers interested under one. conditions the tires are produced. very few to be honest. the

customers aren't interested in sustainability how the tires are produced for us it is of course an important factor but very few customers are interested to be honest . but the sales advisor is convinced that his products meet sustainability standards. as much so i could buy any of these with a clear conscience. big name manufacturers place 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. and so i think you can buy tires with a clear conscience. we want to make our own assessment so we head off for southeast asia. thailand is the world's biggest producer of natural rubber.

more than $4000000.00 tons of it are harvested on its plantations each year over the last 30 years production here is grown by 300 percent. bangkok is the center of the rubber trade. we're meeting journalist to be into a car took it was written extensively about the industry. even from the car it's clear what a big role the tire industry plays in thailand. after all it's not just natural rubber that is produced year but many tires are to. their then shipped around the world in containers but it's not easy to get a glimpse inside the business here. well as. industry. play the. role of tool tyco to me so.

i think the people in this industry might want to keep some secret with them states quite a bit difficult to get information from from them. our 1st stop is in col kamaal district southeast of bangkok. large amounts of rubber are growing here. thanks to these contacts we gain access to one of the plantations. the owner inherited the plantation from his parents might actually have a look at. the past this area was rain forest my parents cleared the whole area and started cultivating it 1st they planted rice and sugar cane but later they switched to rubber and. the plantation begins right behind his

house for the 1st time we see how rubber is harvested. the rubber latex strips out of an incision in the bark of a tree it can be harvested in a liquid state or through the addition of vinegar as they're doing here to get the rubber to solidifying and harvested in solid pieces. boss a product employs more than 50 workers on whose plantation later we will discover what kind of conditions they live in. boston ponte has just planted new rubber trees despite a glut on the market that's driven a steady drop in the price per kilo. on the cod the we used to earn good money with our rubber. the happy department. but 5 years ago the price suddenly plummeted. now we have to say where we

can to get by. you and i. if the plantation owner himself is feeling the pinch what about his workers. on the edge of the plantation we find their decrypted hides. the workers all come from neighboring cambodia they're willing to work for lower wages sometimes. it's hard to tell them why work 12 hours a day 5 days a week. sometimes more. night has fallen on boss who pots plantation it's the best time to harvest rubber the cambodians are getting ready to go to work. their night shift starts at 8 pm and ends at about 5 in the morning. with just head

torches for light they slice deeper and deeper grooves into the tree trunk to keep the milky latex flowing. you. know i've been working on the plantation with her family for the past 7 years. but when a 3 year old can't read or write. i earn very little here between 400-5000 baht a month. that's not a lot. a lot of people in the middle or for that i have to work every day and at least 4 nights a. hard night shifts for a mere $140.00. euros

a month that's around half of the minimum wage in thailand which is itself hardly generous. the family always ground theirs at 5 in the morning to eat but sometimes they have to go without. in the rainy season we can't work and don't get paid then we often don't have anything to eat and have to go hungry. when it gets light not as daughter heads off to school she only gets to see your mother briefly and the rest of the family is going to bed. and they own just 2 mattresses shared between 8 family members. outside is not as brother. his job today spring herbicide.

he's using the extremely toxic product paraquat long outlawed in europe. 'd and dar feel safe wearing a mask. for the 25 year old doesn't realize is that paraquat can also be absorbed through the skin and can lead to severe kidney liver and heart damage. he should by no means be working without protective clothing and shorts but no one has told him that. they run before the harvest we have to kill the grass with poisonous chemicals otherwise snakes could hide in the grass between the trees and bite us. this is what it looks like before the herbicide is used and this is what it looks like afterwards. the chemicals remain in the ground for months not a single worker here is. protective gloves.

after the harvest boss of pot sells his rubber to the woman who controls the trade in the area a broker she dictates the price as tradition has it he has no right to negotiate. oh. well. you know from here we send the latex to our partner factory for processing. that in our rubber is sent on to many well known for such as a good year for example. yeah. we are squash factory she supplies. she calls to ask whether she can disclose their name but the company prefers to remain anonymous. undeterred we decide to

follow a truck we want to know who processes the robber. our journey ends outside the gates of the tire while the young rubber factory which is mainly in chinese hands. we ask for permission to film. but we were immediately turned away and told in no uncertain terms that a written request is also pointless. from above it's possible to get an idea of the scale of the factory that supplies the processed commodity to manufacturers worldwide. then unexpectedly we do get a chance to look around a rubber factory although it's considerably smaller. the owner shows us around the company also supplies thai who are young rubber among others and mainly.

processes liquid latex. and. the workers here are thai not cambodian we ask whether they get the minimum wage of $9000.00 baht around $260.00 euros. i earn $5000.00 baht a month but when the price of rubber goes up again i might earn $20000.00. people. they carry on hoping for better times. the minimum wage is $9000.00. these people commit 1000 of them now because you didn't pay like a deli the day off a. week like say a 5050 what he bought me thing because they're like if you can steal like 2000 to get one of them to get 1000 after all and are. so the employees are not employees but get a share of the profits and it's that easy to undercut thailand scanty minimum wage . behind the factory is the

factories own rubber plantation amid the trees a ramshackle hot. not far away we meet an elderly couple collecting rubber. and. rightly. i mean i'm over 18 and i've been working here for 50 years. my back then the old gentleman was the boss. and the plantation was high up in the mouth. clint and his wife live in grinding poverty while the tire industry boasts worldwide sales of more than 1200000000 gardai.

we decided to confront the big name tire manufacturers based in taiwan but japanese multinational bridgestone the world's biggest tire producer declines our request for an interview. none of the manufacturers are willing to reveal their suppliers we try the german firm continental which has recently opened a new production plant close to the city of rye on. we contacted them several times before our arrival asking for an interview but most requests went unanswered just like this one. continental which is based in hanover is the world's 4th biggest tire producer and so it has a particular responsibility when it comes to determining working conditions in the sector. we hear that the living conditions of people on rubber

plantations in neighboring cambodia are even worse than entitle and so we decided to head there. from the capital phnom penh and we travel north. like in thailand there are rubber plantations as far as the eye can see. with the help of our interpreter we try to arrange a visit to a rubber processing plant. we made several requests for permission to film. and while we don't get that we are allowed to watch production. we do film using a hidden camera. in. here to the natural rubber is delivered in either solid or liquid form.

the people running the factory tell us they supply their product to all parts of the globe. in the season we have to work from 6 in the morning to 10 at night. sometimes nothing to do. the workers are housed on the other side of the street. from the mothers fathers and their older children work together in the factory or on the firm's own plantation. it's a tough life. factory workers are usually better off than plantation workers here they even have their own bathroom. and a kitchen of sorts. but.

we normal workers usually earn around $150.00 a month in the factory for a 7 day week on top of that we get this accommodation free electricity and 20 kilos of rice a month. the guy thought about money. in the high season we sometimes earn $250.00 a month. we travel on to the ratana kiri province in north east cambodia. here many indigenous communities live together in villages and farm the land. one of these villages is cock by the ton leeson river. until recently the people here worked their fields and lived modestly but well in accordance with their own traditions. but those times are over their fertile fields

were practically stolen from them. big international companies bought the land from the government land that had been in the communities hands for generations. amid the global hunger for natural rubber the villagers fields were plowed up to plant rubber trees. a day to day in their community has lost almost all its land. when they rolled onto our fields with bulldozers we stood up against them. but we didn't have a chance. or unable to help. from there they've taken everything from us many families have nothing to eat.

the village chief and 65 year old pu yun show us their land. here where their crops one screw we find a lunar landscape ready for planting new rubber trees. the noise the company took our fields and graves and now they've even stripped bare our sacred mountain to get. the people of concrete fused to work for these new masters on their own fields. like many other villages they're demanding the return of their land but they don't have much hope in the meantime new settlements have sprung up on their fields they house women and men who have moved to the area to work on the rubber plantations. they to live in desperate conditions. every

year the rubber harvest in cambodia grows by 6 to 7 percent and to this growth is not in sight. on the edge of the plantation the next field is being burned off to clear the vegetation and make space for even more rubber trees for even more rubber for car tires. we've seen enough and fly back to germany to confront the tire industry with our findings. we try our luck again at continental headquarters in hanover. in 2018 the automotive supplier had a turnover of 44400000000 euro us. no one here wants to be interviewed but they do at least give a written reply to some of our questions. continental uses natural commodities conscientiously and develops and promotes and implements sustainable and

responsible sourcing of natural rubber across the value chain. the statement continues 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 abide by our business partner code of conduct. we continue on to frankfurt to the german rubber manufacturers association the w d k. many tire mine. factures are among its members it's headquartered in a villa in the city center. is managing director the lobby group also has a code of conduct it sounds good at 1st. the w. d. k. and its members recognize their social responsibility to their own company to customers and suppliers to the environment and to society the actions of the

companies are guided in particular by the values of integrity and fairness. this code of conduct has existed for some time now it provided the basis for this sustainability charter that stipulates that we are responsible for the people who are employed across this value chain. but we can't influence everything right down to the farmers some pharma want to see how can that be as well but if we simply tried paying more for example. then it would reach the 1st echelon of traders but there are 7 other traders beneath them so you never reach the farmer and the fact that. we showed bars and not hard our footage from the rubber plantations. for this is that shocking it's definitely shocking i can't find any excuse or explanation for that we now definitely have to look to the future. like continental

the other market leaders bridgestone and michelin also don't want to give us an interview we try our luck in how near frankfurt where the world's 3rd biggest tire manufacturer is based goodyear but we have no success here goodyear's simply responds with their written statement goodyear doesn't buy natural rubber from cambodia we source less than 5 percent of our global requirements for natural rubber from thailand. he goes on we are committed to the responsible sourcing a raw materials including natural rubber. the statement continues. we offer a retread tires for commercial vehicles and aircraft reducing the use of natural rubber. but why does goodyear retread the tires of commercial vehicles and planes and not the tires of private cars which make up the vast majority of be

a kills we visit germany's only big retread are for automobiles hyphen hang ups here worn down trends or tires are peeled off and replaced with new ones. i was taught say. if we look at this tire here we can see only its surface is worn . so essentially the product is disposed when only about 20 percent of it is worn because that's absurd. in germany there is no legal obligation to recycle tires or because you will use centers to source most of the old tires that he needs from france or spain. yes but what happens to used tires in germany as a class which is there are various disposal methods but usually the tires are shredded and supplied to cement works which are in the tires for fuel rods that's the classic method but now because we have

a surplus of old tires some cement works have stopped taking them or instead of paying for them they get paid to use them as fuel. in germany some 200000 tons of old tires go up in smoke each year while more and more rubber plantations are being established in southeast asia to satisfy the hunger for rubber of course the retreading process also requires fresh forever but about 70 to 80 percent less than is needed to produce new tires. that's a tire that has been produced in exactly the same way as a new tires the production steps were identical we have to fulfill identical legal requirements we conform to international standards we have the same speed ratings these tires have to match up to new ones in every way. tire retreads have an image problem as well because you would use knows all too well. against.

the local authority issued a call for tenders for equipping police vehicles with winter tires and this call categorically ruled out retreads. and that's even though the government always maintains that it places importance on sustainability. so i just and no one has been able to explain to me to this day what data or facts this decision was based upon. beisel tartuffe is entitled. we would also be interested in finding out why police in the city of crackling house and decided against a retread tires. and dear to our request for an interview was declined instead they issue a written statement on emergency call outs our vehicles face extreme situations police cars have to be able to cope with greater strains than normal vehicles on the road. but reckoning housing police don't say why a retread wouldn't be up to the job.

we travel to the northern german state dime to one of germany's few independent tire testing laboratories we have an appointment with an expert. on. people in the police and wrecking halls and say they can't use retreads because they don't meet their eyes specifications what can that be true. as know we've been testing new tires for decades now. if a retread is produced from a high quality worn tire then it will match the performance of a new tire. that it included and the police of the public in general should consider the environmental and financial arguments in favor of retreads so i will definitely see if i get out. of any cuts or does it kinda nowadays we can definitely say that modern retread plants in europe has so advanced that their products can compete with new tires since ovide just doesn't 15 balls i. want to be

. i decide to go for retreads this time and i wonder how my workshop will respond 1st of all the tires have to be balanced. by 3030 what does that mean it's a walk basically they can be easily balanced there are some big name. rants that aren't that good up they cut the wood as much money so tallest. i'm curious to see how they perform on the road. this time i'm prompted for sustainability i'm also confident they're safe too and with peace of mind i set off on my family vacation. place. eco india.

how can a country's economy grow and harmony its people and. when there are do worse look at the bigger picture india a country that faces many challenges and those people are striving to create a sustainable future clever projects from europe and india. and 30 minutes on a v.w. . cut.

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