it is for me it. is for. children is for. beethoven is for. beethoven is for everyone. beethoven 2020. 150th anniversary here on d w. summer time 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. the tires of my family car well past their prime they're getting older and are a bit brittle and the need to replace them ahead of a family vacation has got me thinking about the origin and sustainability of tires on the market right. now 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 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. is interested under what 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 product. meet sustainability standards. isn't much so i could buy any of these with a clear conscience a 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. just like i said. 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 has grown by 300 percent. bangkok is the center of the rubber trade. we're meeting journalist to be entering a car took who 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 here but many tires are too. there then shipped around the world in containers but it's not easy to get

a glimpse inside the business here. well as the industries play the important role to a tight economy 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 collar crime our district southeast of bangkok. large amounts of rubber are growing here. thanks to v's contacts we gain access to one of the plantations. the owner inherited the plantation from his parents. and a lot. of 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. 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. supplied employs more than 50 workers on his plantation later we will discover what kind of conditions they live in. dallas upon to has just planted new rubber trees despite a glut on the market that's driven a steady drop in the price per kilo. so 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. and i. get the plantation owner himself is feeling the pinch what about his workers. on the edge of the plantation we find their decrepit hides. their workers all come. from neighboring cambodia they're willing to work for lower wages sometimes. it's part. of why work 12 hours a day 5 days a week. sometimes more. the night has fallen on both your parts plantation it's the best time to harvest

rubber 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 had torches for light they slice deeper and deeper grooves into the tree trunk to keep the milky latex flowing. no has been working on the plantation with her family for the past 7 years. the 23 year old can't read or write. i earn very little here between 4005000 baht a month. for the whole of the.

people in them and for that i have to work every day and at least 4 nights. card 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 there's a tribe 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 na's 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. whose job today sprang herbicide. he's using the extremely toxic product paraquat long outlawed in europe. and da 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. think they gone 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 wearing protective gloves. and. after the harvest boss about sells his rubber to the woman who controls the trade in the area. she dictates the price as tradition as if she has no right to. negotiate. oh. well. you know from here we send the latex to our partner factory for processing. that and sent on to many well known for such as a good year for example. yeah. we as quite factory she supply us.

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 are 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. they're not expected li we do get a chance to look around a rubber factory although it's considerably smaller. the owner shows us around

her company also supplies tire why are you on rubber among others and mainly processes liquid latex. 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. and. if . they carry on hoping for better times. if the minimum wage is $9000.00. these people are coming up at $9000.00 and so now because you didn't pay like a jelly you day off that would. be like say 5050 what the but nice thing because they're like if you can sail like 2000 they can run to get 1000 after all and are.

so the employees are not employees but get a share of the profits it's that easy to undercut taiwan scanty minimum wage. behind the factory as the factories own rubber plantation amid the trees a ramshackle hot. not far away we meet an elderly couple collecting rubber. union. lightly. and then my mother at 80 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 last. person. 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 thailand 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 in thailand 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. right.

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 when there's nothing to do. and they know. 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. 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. you. in the high season we sometimes earn $250.00 a month. when we travel on to the ratana kiri province in north east cambodia. here many indigenous communities live together in villages and farmland. 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 religious 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 and we stood up against them. but we didn't have a chance. they've

taken everything from us many families have nothing to eat. the village chief and 65 year old poor young 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. the people of cock refuse 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 67 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 it promotes and implements sustainable and responsible sourcing of natural rubber across the value chain. 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. morris dees w d k's 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. and code of conduct this code of conduct has existed for some time now that it provided the basis for this sustainability charter that stipulates that we are responsible for the people who are employed across this robert value chain. but we can't influence everything right down to the farm or some farm out i've seen how can that be. but if we simply tried paying more for example yeah then it would reach the 1st echelon of traders but there are 7 other traders beneath them so you never reach the farmer and effect fala. we showed dollars and now aren't our footage from the rubber plantations.

and they're just 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 and how near frankfurt where the world's 3rd biggest tire manufacturers based goodyear but we have no success here goodyear's simply responds with a 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. it goes on we are committed to the responsible sourcing a raw materials including natural rubber. the statement continues. we offer retread tires for commercial vehicles and aircraft for 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 vehicles we visit germany's only big retread are for automobiles hyphenating us here worn down treads 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 of 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 yourself to source most of the old tires that he needs from france or spain. what happens to used tires in germany as a classicist there are various disposal methods but usually the tires are shredded

and supplied to cement works which burn 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 instead of paying for them they get paid to use them as fuel. in germany some 200000 tons of old timers 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 rubber but about 70 to 80 percent less than is needed to produce new timers. 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 rating these tires have to match up to new ones in every way. tire retreads. i 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. and 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. by shootouts often is entitled. we would also be interested in finding out why police in the city of tackling hausen decided against retread tires. and dear to our request for an interview was declined instead they issue a written statement on emergency call logs are vehicles phrase extreme situations police cars have to be able to cope with greater strains the normal vehicles on the road. but wrecking 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. the police in a wrecking halls and say they can't use retreads because they don't meet their eyes specifications can that be true kindness i. just know we've been testing new tires for decades now. if every trade is produced from a high quality worn tire then it will match the performance of a new tire. that included and the police on the public in general should consider the environmental and financial arguments in favor of retreads so i told him and he said well get time. off and he got so dizzy. nowadays we can go. finitely say that

modern retread plants in europe has so advanced that their products can compete with new tires since the law does and doesn't dictate in balls i. want to beat and . i decide to go for retreads this time and i wonder how my workshop will respond 1st of all the tires out to be balanced. by 3030 what is that me as it doesn't look like it's a wall basically they can be easily balanced there are some big name brands that are not that good they cut the wood as much money for toyotas. i'm curious to see how they perform on the road. this time i've opted for sustainability i'm also confident they're safe too and with peace of mind i set off on my family vacation.

each still tells my story. of the people who climbed to me bill to dedicate this to me. i am not tied down to claim me on this trip of mine. in the centuries they built me they created something churning in russia it's not too much as i was destroying. i have monta my cities days for centuries and accompany my country through its final hours until the day i mean. not tied down to

leave. stumps april and. this is g w news live from berlin tonight in the surge of the pandemic the governor of new york makes an urgent appeal for volunteers to fight the coronavirus as the u.s. navy hospital ship comfort arrives with a 1000 beds the governor warns of a staggering number of deaths in the pandemic most of them are in new york city also coming up.