In a changing economy, Indian farmers turn to a different crop: copper
Young Sanjay and his friends have abandoned their fertile northern India farm fields and taken up a more dangerous line of work: collecting copper powder by submerging discarded circuit boards in nitric acid, and selling the usable leftover materials to factories. In many ways, their process is similar to farm work, requiring them to cut, clean, and sort through the circuit boards. Their harvest, however, is anything but sustainable: it poisons their lungs and the land that used to provide for them.
Director: Mike Paterson
Website: 94 Elements
videoDemography and migration
In California’s farmlands, immigrant workers share their stories of toil and hope
17 minutes
videoNature and landscape
‘A culture is no better than its woods’ – what our trees reveal about us, by W H Auden
5 minutes
videoEngineering
Can monumental ‘ice stupas’ help remote Himalayan villages survive?
15 minutes
videoFairness and equality
There’s a dirty side to clean energy in the metal-rich mountains of South Africa
10 minutes
videoFairness and equality
‘To my old master’ – a freed slave answers the request to return to his old plantation
7 minutes
videoAnimals and humans
Villagers struggle to keep their beloved, endangered ape population afloat
19 minutes
videoFairness and equality
Visit the small Texas community that lives in the shadow of SpaceX launches
14 minutes
videoEarth science and climate
There’s a ‘climate bomb’ ticking beneath the Arctic ice. How can we prepare?
8 minutes
videoArt
In his poem ‘London’, William Blake crafted a bleak vision of the city he loved
9 minutes