The spread of harmful and heavy metals is a deadly gift of capital to humanity
Hassan Abbasi
An important law of capitalist economy is that the more these relations of production evolve, the less able they are to survive by retaining the tools and methods of their past. “The bourgeoisie cannot continue to exist unless it successively revolutionizes the instruments of production and therefore the whole of social relations” (Marx). The continuous development of new means of communication such as railways, ocean liners, automobiles, airplanes, passenger buses, and freight trucks, all of which are the result of the progress of capitalist communications and are considered a major leap in the globalization of these relations of production, are only a glimpse of the internal compulsion of capital to relentlessly develop technique and industry and other necessities for increasing labour productivity. The introduction of industrial machinery into production, which led to an increase in production volume and the use of more raw materials and a wider range of raw and auxiliary materials, in addition to further developing the division of labour at the societal and factory levels and further improving labour productivity, also created new environmental conditions within the factory and in the areas of production, society, and nature. I am not concerned here with the history of industrial developments, but with one point, namely, the role of raw and auxiliary materials in the development of capitalism and the process by which this process affected the living conditions of the working class. The energy and fuel sources of some of these machines, which were undergoing their initial stages of development in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in Europe, were generally coal, but with the discovery and extraction of oil and gas, a rapid evolution in the use of these resources occurred, which still continues to some extent. The production and consumption of fossil energy resources on a large scale, the decomposition of oil and gas into basic materials, and the production of new derivatives from them as raw and auxiliary materials in the production of various chemical products, chemical polymers, pharmaceuticals, etc., not only created new areas for capital investment, but also created new environments and conditions in factories, the environment, and nature that have no end. New areas of capital advance, along with the development of mining machines, created new areas of production and use of new mineral materials, which caused the decomposition of various elements and raw materials with varying degrees of destruction for humans and nature. This is still ongoing. In this regard, many elements dangerous to human and animal health were removed from their natural coverings and came into direct contact with humans and animals as pure elements and materials. To the same extent that big industry has advanced in the field of mining, the destructive dimensions of the human and animal environment have also expanded. This means that the causes of environmental destruction and the working conditions of the working class should not be sought in some superficial and secondary effects of capitalist production, but the roots of all this, including the deadly diseases and the daily killing of thousands of workers around the world, must be explored in the capitalist relations of production themselves. The forms of these disasters may have varied and changed throughout the history of capitalism, but they all stem from the same source. They are all the product of the existence of capital and the natural laws of profit-making in this mode of production. An important difference has certainly occurred. Today, especially given the global nature of capitalist production relations, the environmental destruction of this system also breaks all national borders and takes on catastrophic international dimensions. To the extent that capital is global and capitalism has become global, its pests are also global and do not recognize national borders, and to the extent that capital grows, the pressure of its pests and destructions also comes to an even greater degree on humans and nature. In this article, we attempt to open up some corners of these destructions and pollutions using the documents and evidence at hand to enlighten the minds of workers.
One of the cases is Mercury. This element is toxic, carcinogenic and destructive to the nervous system. Mercury has multiplied in the human environment over the past 150 years. This element, which causes various diseases in the blood, in the blood of pregnant mothers reduces brain development in the fetus and reduces the intelligence of future generations of humans. Minamata fishermen and surrounding communities in Japan in the 1950s suffered from diseases caused by eating fish contaminated with mercury. In Minamata, a chemical factory used mercury in its production process. Fishermen first noticed that their cats were going crazy. The cats were generally fed leftover fish caught in the surrounding waters. Apparently healthy women gave birth to children with spasticity, lameness, and various retardations (low IQ), even to very high levels that led to death. Soon, medical centers realized that the new diseases were caused by mercury, and its dangerous form was methylmercury. While this chemical company (Chisso Corporation) had been engaged in chemical production using mercury since 1932, polluting the surrounding waters, and in the 1950s its relationship with the occurrence of mental illnesses was evident, people did not succeed in stopping the company’s production until 1968 because its owners refused to accept their responsibility for bogus reasons and in long processes of war and judicial evasion. This increased the scale of the disaster, so that at the time of the cessation of production, 2,668 people were infected with this disease (Minamata Disease), 1,784 people died in those years, and today only 637 of the original number are alive. In total, 10,000 people were poisoned to varying degrees by mercury in the waters around this city and its surrounding towns (low IQ is one of its minor side effects). It is worth mentioning that by 2015, the mercury content of the waters of this region was higher than other waters. Let me explain a little about the way methylmercury works. When a fetus is growing rapidly, 200 brain cells are produced every second, and this speed is one of the factors and conditions of normal human growth. It is during this period that methylmercury enters the fetus through the placenta and maternal blood, but this does not mean that elemental mercury is not dangerous for adults. The same mechanism is true for others, with the difference that humans have different rates of development in their nervous system at different stages of life. Mercury accumulates in various body tissues, including fat, nervous system, hair, and even nails. That’s why researchers used polar bears, whose skins have been kept in museums for hundreds of years, in their experiments. The results of the experiments show that the Earth’s poles do not carry any mercury compounds, but mercury accumulates in its waters and ice through snow and rain, and animals such as whales and polar bears accumulate it in their bodies as a result of feeding on fish. For this reason, researcher Rune Dietz 39 in Greenland, studying polar bear fur, says that their experiments, which go back to 1300 AD, show that the mercury concentration in these animals suddenly increased significantly after 1850, and this trend of increase continues, although with a smaller upward slope. The mercury concentration is now 20 times higher than it was in 1850. The increase in methylmercury concentration, according to experiments conducted on seals, bears, sea lions, six species of polar birds in Canada, and ten species of polar birds from Norway to Canada, shows that not only did its amount increase between 1990 and around 2005, but this increase was especially significant from the year these animals were born until their puberty (after 6 years) (Tables 8 and 9) 40.
| Polar jaw type | Age (years) | Mercury content in the live g/gµ |
| Avanersuaq (north) | 2 to 6 | 12 |
| Avanersuaq (north | More than 6 | 40 |
| Avanersuaq (south), | 1 | 8 |
| Avanersuaq (south), | 2 to 6 | 40 |
| Avanersuaq (south), | More than 6 | 45 |
| Ittoqqortoormiit (north) | 1 | 5 |
| Ittoqqortoormiit (north) | 2 to 6 | 10 |
| Ittoqqortoormiit (north) | More than 6 | 10 |
| Ittoqqortoormiit (south) | 1 | 5 |
| Ittoqqortoormiit (south) | 2 to 6 | 10 |
| Ittoqqortoormiit (south) | More than 6 | 15 |
| Polar jaw type | Age (years) | Mercury content in the live g/gµ |
| Barrow, Alaska | 0 to 5 | 1 |
| Barrow, Alaska | More than 5 | 8 |
| Sachs Harbour, Canada | 0 to 5 | 30 |
| Sachs Harbour, Canada | More than 5 | 30 |
| Grise Fiord, Canada | 0 to 5 | 30 |
| Grise Fiord, Canada | More than 5 | 40 |
| Arctic Bay, Canada | 0 to 5 | 9 |
| Arctic Bay, Canada | More than 5 | 20 |
| Pond Inlet, Canada | 0 to 5 | 9 |
| Pond Inlet, Canada | More than 5 | 22 |
| Avanersuaq, Greenland | 2 to 4 | 7 |
| Avanersuaq, Greenland | 5 to 10 | 10 |
| Uummannaq, Greenland | 2 to 4 | 2 |
| Uummannaq, Greenland | 5 to 10 | 5 |
| Uummannaq, Greenland | 11 to 15 | 8 |
Metals in general and heavy metals in particular have stable molecular structures and are mostly soluble in fats, so they accumulate in nature and the body and continue to have their destructive effects over a long period of time (Biomagnification). Heavy metals, which have existed in nature in the form of stable compounds in shells and rock layers for millions of years, are removed from natural protection by mining. These substances circulate in free form, such as lead in oil and gasoline, mercury in coal and gold mining, pure copper in various paints, pure cadmium in batteries, arsenic in molten metals, and other elements. Since they are never wasted or destroyed, they are dispersed in nature and enter rivers, lakes, and groundwater through factory waste. Many heavy metals combine with chemicals dispersed in nature to form very dangerous compounds (such as methylmercury) and cause more diseases and environmental damage than pure metals do. The examples in the above tables, which are derived from animal studies, are fully applicable to humans living in similar environments, eating similar foods, and exposed to similar waste. The only difference is that no organization, whether governmental or non-governmental, or any official of the capitalist state, even conducts research and experiments on workers or the general public who deal with these substances in various ways on a daily basis, except when a major accident (anthropogenic contamination) leads to the death of a significant number of people, then the vast and long apparatuses of the capitalist states rush into action, and that too in the direction of demagoguery and in the role of saviours of humanity! It seems that relations other than capitalist relations have caused these accidents. The scale of accidents and daily losses, coupled with the ever-faster rotation of production and capital accumulation, is so high that even if, on the assumption of impossibility, some of the billions of dollars of surplus value resulting from the exploitation of the billions of workers in the world were allocated annually to compensate for human and natural losses and damages, it would still be small. Because the working process of capital is such that it continuously fills its produced goods (regardless of whether they are consumed in everyday life or re-entered into the production process) with an increasing volume of useless things, that is, it makes a larger part of it harmful to nature and man. With a simple examination, we come to the conclusion that daily, every hour and every second, capitalist production relations are destroying the living conditions of man, nature and animals, for this simple reason it is pure demagoguery that these relations can compensate for these anthropogenic contaminations. I have therefore chosen this term from the British Encyclopaedia, which is not as clear as other terms such as accident, catastrophe, and the like, and does not include the role of specific production relations that are the cause of these types of events. Although this term is also used in a deceptive manner and man is generally mentioned as the agent of destruction, we workers know very well that it is these capitalist production relations and their planners that are the cause of all these disasters.
Since money has been transformed into capital and has subjected free workers or the vast dispossessed masses to the pressure of exploitation, the capitalist has become the owner of raw materials, machinery and installations, the worker has nothing to sell but his labour power. He exchanges his labour power with capital in exchange for the means of subsistence. The worker is separated from the objective conditions of production and has no involvement in what is to be produced, the amount of production or the manner in which it is produced, because all these conditions are determined by capital. The result of this situation is the worker’s exclusion from involvement in the work process and the planning of work and production, his alienation from his work. Alienation means the loss of the conditions for influencing and intervening in what happens, and where the worker is separated from the product of his labour, his free involvement in the process of events is also cut off. The commodity nature of the product of labour and the fact that it belongs to others, the capitalist, constitute the root of the alienated world of the worker. We workers have no role in planning what is produced, how much is produced, how it is distributed. Capital exploits us only as wage labourer’s, not as producers involved in the work and determining the fate of our own work and lives. For this very reason, we are fighting to overthrow the capitalist system and replace it with a council system of all human beings, for a society governed by ourselves, not even by our representatives! By the direct power of our masses, not by any force above us. A society in which we determine what is to be produced, how much is to be produced, and under what conditions it is to be produced and distributed, based on the real needs of the physical and intellectual advancement of all human beings. The result is that in natural production, where man produces for his daily needs, a fundamental unity will arise between him and nature. In fact, man returns to nature. Now let us return to the subject. Mercury is a heavy metal element that, in addition to its carcinogenic and toxic properties, is liquid at normal temperatures (22-24 degrees Celsius) and quickly emits mercury vapor, which is why it is easily transported by air circulation. Mercury concentrations are still increasing in the Earth’s atmosphere, and the reason for this is not mercury-containing lamps and thermometers, but natural sources such as volcanoes (which always occur throughout the life of the Earth), other factors (Anthropogenic Contaminants), especially two other sources. The first is the burning of coal as an energy source (China, Germany and Eastern Europe and USA are the most important producers and consumers) and other fossil fuels such as oil. Another source of increased mercury in the atmosphere and nature is the process of gold production in gold mines in countries when miners separate and purify gold from other salts with mercury (Peter Appel Small-Scale mining). There are an estimated 20 to 40 million gold miners worldwide who use this technique (mostly in Southeast Asia, Africa, and South and Central Latin America). I am not talking about fatal mining accidents here but just look at the data from Tanzanian gold mines, which have been operating since 1932. Every year, many workers die in mine collapses (18 gold miners were killed in Ghana on November 12, 2009, and a year later, on June 9, 100 workers died in a gold mine in Ghana). All this is in addition to the terrible toll from mercury poisoning. This technique releases tons of mercury into the atmosphere, but more importantly, the workers who have been mining for money for hundreds of years! The last stage of production is when the gold amalgam (a mixture of gold and mercury) is heated and the mercury evaporates!! Pure gold is obtained, the workers at this stage bear the greatest risks and losses. The purpose of naming the current gold-producing countries is not to ignore the crimes of capital in the past in this regard because we know very well that all capital on a global level has committed poisons in one form or another throughout its dark history. Peter Appel reports that this technique currently produces the most mercury in the Earth’s atmosphere, a direct result of the increasing production of the precious metal (Figure 12 shows the production of this rare metal throughout the history of capitalism). Today, about seven techniques are used to extract gold. The mercury technique accounts for a quarter of the world’s gold production because it is the cheapest way to extract gold. Although it requires more labour, due to the extremely cheap labour cost, capitalists in the mentioned countries use this technique. With this method, the rate of gold produced per ounce is much cheaper. Other techniques are also not very environmentally friendly. In many of them, cyanide compounds are used, which are very toxic and deadly for both mining and production workers and the environment. In addition, and outside the type of gold extraction technique, since this metal is always accompanied by other heavy metals such as cadmium, zinc, arsenic and mercury, its mineral and factory wastewater pollutes the environment.
Figure 12: The increasing production of gold in the world since 1835 is a sign of the growing use of mercury as an auxiliary material in the production of this precious stone.
When mercury is released into the atmosphere from energy sources such as coal and oil and from gold mining, it returns to the earth in rainwater. When it mixes with seawater, it forms methylmercury, the most dangerous form of mercury. This compound is easily absorbed and accumulated in small aquatic organisms such as plankton, corals, and other small, bottom-dwelling organisms. When fish feed on these organisms, it enters the food chain higher and higher, eventually reaching humans and other animals that eat fish. This means that mercury has accumulated more and more, reaching its highest levels in larger fish. This means that mercury accumulation in areas that have never had gold mining techniques or fossil fuels such as oil and coal in large quantities (the Arctic) has also increased to such an extent that there is no limit to the amount of mercury that can be found. Meanwhile, the state institutions of capital, like other spheres of capital, engage in the demagoguery of determining the limits of acceptable and unacceptable levels of this substance! While the working masses of the world, who are exposed to these toxins every second, are forced to fight not only for their absence but also for the destruction of the system that produces them. The limit set by the capital government is 1000 µg/kg (1000 micrograms per kilo) of fish, and Max Hansen 41 proves in his report that this is completely wrong and misleading. Because when a woman weighing 60 kg eats 100 grams of fish per week, her body has absorbed about 1.7 micrograms of methylmercury per kilogram of body weight per week, and thus we reach the upper limit set by the European Food Safety Authority. (The European Food Safety Authority, EFSA, calculates that 1.3 micrograms of methylmercury per kilogram of body weight per week is safe.) Phillipe Grand Jean also shows that the woman mentioned above, by eating 100 grams of tuna per week, accumulates 6 micrograms per gram of hair, which is six times the limit set by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). (1 microgram of mercury per gram of hair) In the 1970s, the aforementioned researcher, in his study of the people of the Faroe Islands, whose diet is mainly whales, showed that an increasing percentage of the people of these islands have a lower IQ (intelligence quotient), and instead a smaller percentage have a normal IQ (100) and a high IQ (130). This shows that the accumulation of mercury in the human body has nothing to do with the boundaries and limits set by capitalist governments, but is a process resulting from the production of mercury and its release into the environment.
Lead (Lead, Pb) Lead is produced by the radioactive decay of uranium and is itself converted to mercury by radioactive decay. It exists in the earth’s layers in various forms, but its spread in the environment is solely due to its extraction in mines as a raw material for the manufacture of alloys, paints, anti-rust coatings, water pipes, batteries, and ammunition.
Lead, like mercury, accumulates in the body and, like it, causes complications in the nervous system and brain, especially in children and fetuses. In adults, it causes kidney disease and high blood pressure. Most of the lead in the body comes from food (46.6%), followed by fruits (17.6%), sugar and sweets (11.6%), vegetables (9.1%), and grains (8.4%). 41. Lead intake for children aged 4 to 14 years is estimated to be between 0.3 and 0.56 micrograms per kilogram of body weight per day (µ0.3-0.56 g/kg bw/day). For French children it is 0.27, but EFSA estimates a figure of less than 0.27 (µ0.27 g/kg bw/day) for the whole of Europe. In Denmark, a value of 1.07 g/kg bw/day µ has been reported (i.e. four times the amount typical throughout Europe). For adults (15 to 75 years) it is between 0.23 and 0.41 g/kg bw/day µ. For the same age group in Denmark, 0.58 g/kg bw/day µ has been reported. The absorption (metabolism) of lead through food for children is between 40 and 50 percent, while for adults this absorption is 3 to 10 percent, which means that children are most affected by this element. In addition, children who are deficient in iron and calcium absorb more lead than children who have normal iron and calcium. It goes without saying that the process of lead’s destructive effects on the body is just like mercury 41. Lead, like other heavy and toxic metals, has no relationship or mechanism in the human body or other organisms, yet it is always produced and enters the body in various ways, and it poisons all organs of the body from the molecular level to the cells and tissues. Lead has the property of being able to occupy the place of calcium in the body’s molecules and thus affect their properties and mechanisms, and combine with proteins, thereby removing them from their mechanism and even turning them against it. The most important and dangerous effect of this element is on children. In this regard, some researchers believe in a relationship between crime and lead accumulated in the body (Need 2002 Nevin 2000). When a child’s body absorbs and accumulates lead, its destructive effects remain throughout life, effects on the kidneys, blood pressure, reduced reproductive power and normal body growth, reduced brain growth which leads to a decrease in intelligence quotient (IQ) in children, reduced red blood cell formation, reduced hearing and reduced skeletal development in children. Lead accumulates in the environment because it readily combines with acids, bases, and other chemical molecules. It is very stable and readily dissolves in water. Lead is used in batteries, computers, paints (for bridges and ships), ceramics, jewellery, and decorative objects. Workers in smelting, metalworking, welding, and industrial manufacturing are most exposed to lead through inhalation of lead-contaminated air from factories, dust containing lead, and fumes (ATSDR 2005). Workers in these capital investment areas are directly exposed to lead-related effects:
Battery manufacturing, road construction, bridge construction, rubber manufacturing, plastic manufacturing, steel manufacturing, welding, waste collectors and incinerators, refrigeration systems, ceramic manufacturing, soldering, mining, and oil and gas 42 cause many injuries to workers. On April 25, 1998, the working masses of the city of Seville, Spain, witnessed the collapse of a lead and zinc mine sewage dam, which contaminated protected areas and surface and groundwater. Although they had warned the owners of capital many times about the overload of the dam capacity, since the thirst of the capitalists is always to obtain as much surplus value as possible from the exploitation of the workers, they do not listen to the environmental problems of the workers. This incident is nothing exceptional in the capitalist world because they go exactly this way, i.e. reducing the costs of capital, to higher accumulation and thus to fight the falling rate of profit. There are many such mine and factory sewage dams all over the world and they must be expected to break at any moment. In Hungary, two tailings’ dams from a lead mine and a factory have been waiting to burst since 2010. In Romania, a similar incident occurred in 2000. In the United States, similar conditions turned Picher, Oklahoma, into a ghost town. The mine, once the largest zinc and lead mine in the world, produced half of the lead used in World War II. Workplace pollution caused high levels of lead in the blood and body tissues of workers, which resulted in an increase in cancer. Workers did not leave the area because they did not want to lose their jobs and wages until 2006, when research showed that if the mine’s wastewater dams were to break, about 70 million tons of wastewater and 36 million tons of sand and sediment would destroy the entire area. At this time (18,000 workers worked in that factory) they evacuated and left the city and in September 2009 all activities in the city were stopped. In Australia, the mining company (Magellan Metals) in the city (Esperance) caused environmental pollution by transporting lead at the city’s port in 2006-2007, which led to the death of thousands of birds and the poisoning of hundreds of people and children in the city. Rainwater carried lead and nickel from the mine into the groundwater, polluting drinking water and groundwater. The problem did not end there, in 2008 it was discovered that 1,775 buildings in the city had traces of lead and nickel, and all buildings, from roofs to superstructures and water and sewage pipes, had to be cleaned and free of lead and nickel. Lead production, like other metals, has been constantly increasing throughout the history of capitalism. In 1970, this production was 3.4 million tons worldwide and reached 5 million tons in 2012.Cadmium, Cd It is also a heavy metal that enters the environment, especially agriculture, through factory production (Figure 13 shows the growth of production of this harmful metal throughout the life of industrial capitalism). Agricultural products, especially cereals and potatoes, are the most important source of absorption of this element for the human body. Cadmium absorption is 3 to 4 times higher in people with iron deficiency than in people with normal iron levels. Cadmium accumulates in the kidneys and, since the half-life of this element in the body is between 10 and 30 years, it continues to damage the kidneys and liver over a long period of time. This element causes osteoporosis indirectly, i.e. through kidney damage, and directly. Other effects of cadmium include damage to the reproductive system, the immune system, and, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), it is carcinogenic. 43 Inhalation of cadmium in factories where it is produced and as an auxiliary substance causes lung cancer among workers. The intake of this element for the general Danish population (4 to 75 years) is 0.18 (μg/kg bw/day 0.18) and for Danish adults (15 to 75 years) is 0.15 (μg/kg bw/day 0.15). The largest sources of cadmium are cereals and starches (49%) and vegetables (34%). Research shows that 5% of the Danish population absorbs cadmium in their bodies. 41 It is important to emphasize that this large study was conducted on people of different ages in Denmark, but its results apply to all capitalist societies, in other words, the whole world. Cadmium is rarely found in its pure form because it combines easily with other chemical molecules to form much more toxic compounds. For this reason, it can be found in water, air, soil, sediments, and food. Mineral production, metal smelting, and oil extraction are sources that contribute to elevated concentrations of cadmium in the environment and at work. Workers in various fields of capital investment work with cadmium, including the production of alloys, chemicals used in chemical synthesis, metal smelting, casting, production of cadmium wire, production of cadmium powder for soldering, special cadmium powder for contact between metal sheets and as an auxiliary material in battery production, production of silver alloys, an auxiliary material in electronic goods, and (PVD) for contact between gas, liquid, and solid surfaces. Cadmium’s special properties make it unique in non-acidic environments such as seawater and its resistance to rust in alloys. It is a good conductor of heat and electricity and when used as an additive in electrical and thermal alloys, it increases the speed of processes. Its high properties in maintaining colour stability in plastics, glass, ceramics and enamelling increase the life of these goods. When used as a catalyst and accelerator of chemical reactions in the production of medicines, cosmetics and plant pesticides, it increases the speed of production. All of the above properties give speed, endurance and reliability to the capitalist production process and ultimately increase labour productivity.
Figure 13 Cadmium production has been increasing throughout the history of capitalism.
The working masses of Japan must have heard from their working fathers about the incident that led to the Itai Itai disease. The first incident and wound that capitalism inflicted on the world’s workers was in Japan in 1912, through the mining of cadmium. The sewage from the cadmium mines in Toyama City, which flowed into the surrounding rivers, polluted the groundwater and the running water used for rice cultivation. This was the fourth incident in the history of Japanese capitalist relations, causing the city’s workers to suffer from joint, back and bone pain, which is known in history as I I disease. Despite their best efforts to condemn the mine owners, the workers were unable to assert their rights until 1955. On March 21, 2013, the people of Guangzhou, Hunan Province, China, witnessed the revelation of a problem that Chinese capitalist government officials had long concealed from the public. They denied that the outbreak of diseases such as diarrhoea and vomiting, severe stomach pain, and a sudden increase in other diseases caused by the destruction of the body’s immune system were related to the gradual increase in cadmium in the body. During the revelation of the root of the people’s ill health, it was found that 44% of the rice produced in the province (the main rice producer in China) contains cadmium, which has recently exceeded the limit by 80 times. Cadmium compounds in water and the environment were caused by the discharge of factory wastewater into running water and groundwater. It should be noted that this state is one of the producers of mineral metals. It was further revealed that fertilizers with high cadmium content are used in industrial rice cultivation. In order to keep production costs low, capitalists producing chemical fertilizers refrain from purifying and separating cadmium from fertilizers. Furthermore, the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) says that between 40 and 70 percent of China’s farmland is contaminated. One-third of the rice produced in China is contaminated with lead and one-tenth with cadmium (quoted from The Wall Street Journal). These incidents, or rather the horrific crimes of capital against the working class and their environment (Anthropogenic Contaminations), are constantly either in the making or have already taken their toll. In May 2005, it was revealed that smelters in this same state were dumping industrial wastewater into nearby rivers. For this reason, the Peking River, which flows through this province and supplies water to this province and many surrounding provinces and cities, contains 10 times more cadmium than its normal level. The millions of working masses in these areas were deprived of drinking water for months. When the officials of the capitalist government say that the water of this river is now safe to use, this does not mean that it is not dangerous to people’s health. They only mean, like other capitalist governments, that some poison in food, environment, air and water is the seasoning of these production relations and the soup is sloppy.
Arsenic (As)
Apart from being released through volcanoes, it is mainly released into the environment and food through mining, iron smelting plants, fossil fuels (oil, gas and coal), pesticides, plant growth agents and wood preservatives. Arsenic compounds are very complex and persistent, and its release into the environment after the 18th century has led to the emergence and formation of a large number of persistent arsenic-containing substances. These substances are very toxic, but the type of arsenic compounds is considered the most dangerous toxic substance in food (International Agency for Research on Cancer, IARC) and the World Health Organization’s Expert Committee on Food and Drug Administration (JECFA). Foods with the highest levels of arsenic are classified as follows. Rice and seafood contain the most arsenic. They are followed by beverages (45%), cereals (26.2%), vegetables (5.8%), fruits (8.9%), and meat (9.7%). The average intake of mineral arsenic in Denmark is 0.12 micrograms per kilogram of body weight per day (µ0.12 g/kg bw/day) 41. It is said (Int J Environ Health Res. 2002 Sep and IWA Water Wiki 2010) that 80% of the 40 million working class of Bangladesh living in the delta region are exposed to arsenic poisoning and its resulting diseases such as (melanosis, leuco-melanosis, keratosis, hyperkeratosis, dorsum, non-petting edema, gangrene) because millions of wells around the Ganges River Delta as well as the running waters of Bangladesh are contaminated with arsenic.
Figure 14 is taken from http://sos-arsenic.net/english/contamin
Figure 14 shows diseases caused by the metabolism of lead and arsenic in the body’s organs, which are very similar to the destructive effects of mercury. In addition, cadmium, like lead and arsenic, combines with the body’s DNA to cause serious genetic complications. Nervous system changes, hardening of the skin layer (cloves), changes in skin colour, lung, bladder and kidney cancer, and poor circulation in the skin are among the complications of arsenic in this figure. The effects of high-dose lead include mental retardation, coma, seizures, and death. The effects of low-dose lead include reduced IQ, reduced attention span, decreased growth, difficulty reading and learning, deafness, other health problems, and behavioural problems. It is not just the working masses of Bangladesh who are afflicted with the diseases shown in Figure 14. The following list shows the populations of countries that have been recorded to suffer from similar diseases, totalling about 100 million workers.
| Country | Number affected |
| Taiwan | 20 000 |
| Inner Mongolia | 50 000 |
| Obuasi Ghana | Unknown |
| Cordoba Argentina | 10 000 |
| Antofagasta Chile | 20 000 |
| Lagunera Mexico | 20 000 |
| Cornwall Britain | Effect unknown |
| W. Bengal, India | 38, 000 000 |
| Bangladesh | 50, 000 000 |
Table 11. shows 25 factories in South America that emit arsenic-containing gases, among which energy production, copper production, refineries and glass factories pollute the air the most.
We have already discussed the arsenic (As) in the ground released by acid rain, as well as arsenic from coal-fired and wood-fired industries that poison groundwater (EFSA European Food Safety Authority 6 March 2015).
This phenomenon is the main cause of high arsenic levels in rice cultivated in large areas of Asia, including China, India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh. The reason is acid rain caused by the precipitation of nitrogen and sulphur oxides from the use of fossil fuels such as oil and coal. These oxides combine with moisture in the air to produce nitric and sulfuric acids. Acidification of soil, groundwater, lakes and wetlands is a result of these rains. Acid rain not only reduces soil mineral content due to unequal competition with harmful heavy metal elements such as lead, cadmium, mercury and arsenic, but also, especially by releasing heavy metals, facilitates their circulation in the air, soil and water. Table 11 shows, for example, the arsenic that American manufacturing companies release into the atmosphere, and Figures 15 and 16 show what other areas of capital investment, water and soil are contaminating with arsenic and other heavy metals. The result of all these destructions is more than the sum of their individual parts, because here a stream of heavy metals is circulating, constantly circulating from soil to water and space. Even if we do not consider the annual increase in each of these elements, this circulation itself is enough to have a huge destructive effect in increasing diseases such as cancer, genetic changes, increased allergies, various skin diseases, various mental disorders, and in summary what we see in Figure 14. Let us remember that all of this is in addition to the multitude of elements, heavy metals, and harmful substances that workers deal with daily, and they are constantly exposed to their direct pollution. The destruction of the environment, water, and food is a gift that capitalism offers to the entire world.
Figure 15. Imperila Metals Ltd.’s discharge of arsenic, lead, cobalt, and mercury into its mine tailings dams in Canada through 2013. The amount of arsenic was 84 tons, lead was 38 tons, cobalt was 138 tons, and mercury was 562 kilograms.
Figure 16. In the last hundred years, arsenic has played an important role in the progress and productivity of work in various fields of capital investment.
The fields of animal feed production for weight gain, plant pest control, production of high-efficiency batteries, alloys that improve the natural quality of raw materials and thereby improve the mechanization of production processes and increase production speed, production of metals that transmit electricity more smoothly, wood pest control and increase the resistance and life of wood, and glass production are among them. For example, in 1998, about 30 thousand tons of arsenic were used in various products in the United States.
Nickel (Ni) It is a raw material used in the production of various goods, including alloys (steel), shipbuilding, aircraft, battery production, automobile catalysts, and electronic goods (computers, mobile phones, and laptops). Workers who work with this element are exposed to cancer, sensitivities (allergies, and eczema) through breathing, food, water, and physical contact. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that each person absorbs about 1.5 micrograms per kilogram of body weight per day (µ1.5 g/kg bw/day). The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) estimates this amount at 2.5 (µ2.5 g/kg bw/day). This amount can even increase to 15 micrograms per kilogram of body weight per day. The use of cooking utensils such as knives, pots, tap water left in pipes, and electronic devices also increases this amount. (When tomato sauce is prepared in a nickel-coated steel container, 9 micrograms of nickel enters the food each time). Foods such as chocolate (5.4 mg/kg) and dried fruits, cosmetics and nuts (3.3 mg/kg) all contain nickel. 41 Items such as keys, coins, doorknobs, button labels, jewellery and mobile phones that are in constant contact should also be added to the list of important sources of nickel. The production of this metal has increased significantly, especially in recent decades. About 65% of nickel produced is used for steel production, 12% for the production of electrical conductors, and the remaining 23% is used between the production of alloys, batteries, automobile catalysts, and electronics (Figure 17 Nickel Production Growth).
Figure 17. World nickel production in million tons per year in the last century and its acceleration in the recent century
The Finnish nickel and uranium mining company (Talvivaara Mining Company plc) has a history of no more than a few decades, but that is enough to earn it the title of Nordic environmental destructor. If we consider the last few years, in November 2012 it caused environmental pollution through the leakage of nickel, uranium and other toxic metals. In April 2014, it dumped 250,000 cubic meters of its factory wastewater into the surrounding waters, and more recently, in January 2015, it dumped excess sulphate into the surrounding waters, causing a 65-fold increase in nickel concentration in the lakes and ending the existence of living organisms on the bottom of the lakes. In November 2006, it was revealed that Imperila Metals Ltd, which has numerous metal mining investments, had been dumping 10 million cubic meters of mine wastewater and 4.5 million cubic meters of metals and nickel-contaminated sand into lakes, rivers and wetlands around the beautiful and lush Cariboo region in British Columbia, Canada, over a long period of time. These are just a few examples of the thousands of anthropogenic contaminants that are dumped on people and their living and working environments every day, week, month and year after year in the capitalist world. Nickel, like other heavy and harmful metals, is released into the air (in pure form or as nickel compounds) and rainwater returns to the soil and accumulates there, gradually reaching lakes, running water and groundwater, thus following the same cycle as mercury, lead, cadmium and arsenic.
Aluminium (Al)
A common element that covers 8% of the Earth’s surface. It is used in the production of many products such as food, medicine, and water purification, and is therefore abundant in drinking water and foods. For example, in ready-to-eat baby foods, it is found in between 0.2 and 4.4 milligrams per kilogram of food. It is used in other products such as food preservatives and additives, food colouring, thickening, bulking, and preventing food from curdling. In addition, it is used in ready-to-eat cereals, beer, bread, and ice cream. In research on mice, its damaging neurological and sexual effects (testicular changes and the number of sex cells) have been reported 44. It is not necessary to repeat here the list of aluminium-containing additives to foods and medicines prescribed by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) for the information of workers (E173, E520-E523T E541T E554-E556, E558-E559, E1452). The vast areas of capital investment use this raw material in a large amount in various productions, which is why the growth of its production after the Second Imperialist War has been very high, so that its current production is 10 times the amount during the war (Figure 18). Aluminium can be absorbed and accumulated in all tissues of the body and its main channel of distribution is the blood. This element passes through the protective tissues of the brain and fetus and causes damage to these organs. Neurotoxicity and brain toxicity are among its side effects. This metal passes through the layers of the skin of the body and enters the inner skin and various channels such as the vascular glands. Although this element is not considered a heavy metal, it has harmful properties such as those mentioned above for the body. Aluminium competes with calcium in the body, so its excess in the body causes osteopenia. This is especially common in children. High levels of aluminium in the body cause changes in the blood-brain barrier, which plays an important role in preventing foreign and harmful substances from entering this important organ of the body. 46. Although aluminium is not as allergenic as nickel, it seems that due to its use in various products (it is used as a raw material or auxiliary raw material in more than 40 different production processes), it causes various diseases and discomforts in the body that are more harmful than nickel. The absorption of this metal through acidic foods (foods with vinegar and even mixed with sugar) causes its further accumulation in the body and leads to damage to the nervous system and bones. Increased aluminium in the body causes changes in female hormones and leads to breast cancer (this experiment was conducted on cultured human breast cells in the laboratory) 47. The EFSA report in 2008 indicated a level of 0.2 to 2.3 mg aluminium per kilogram of body weight per week (µg/kg bw/day 29 to 329) 41. In 1988, in the town of Camelford in England, 20 tonnes of aluminium sulphate were released into the town water system for an unknown period of time, causing water pollution in the town and surrounding countryside. The authorities covered up the incident, but people complained of various inconveniences. After some time, the issue was revealed when a 58-year-old woman died of Alzheimer’s in 2004, and research on her brain showed a large amount of aluminium, and this led to the relationship between people’s brain and mental disorders and aluminium poured into water. 48 Researchers continued their research and found diseases such as urinary tract disorders, skin diseases, stomach cramps, diarrhoea, fatigue, forgetfulness, and premature aging in relation to aluminium and its compounds. When aluminium enters the body, it accumulates in the nervous tissue, brain, bones, liver, heart, spleen and muscles. In addition, the release of aluminium from soils, through acid rain and its entry into lakes, causes respiratory problems in fish. This metal combines with phosphates in chemical fertilizers and creates a complex that ultimately reduces phosphorus in the earth. Cosmetics such as deodorants, shampoos, various creams, various skin medications and vaccines (80% of vaccines) contain aluminium. aluminium enters the bloodstream when it comes into contact with the skin (worms). Studies have linked diseases such as Parkinson’s, MS, and Alzheimer’s to the presence of this element in the body 44, 45. A study in Norway shows that using underarm deodorant increases the risk of breast cancer by 50 times 44.
Figure 18. World aluminium production in million tons per year in the last century and its acceleration in the recent century
In capitalist relations of production, the working man is considered merely as a means of producing capital’s profit. The capitalist uses his labour power like any other commodity in exchange for wages. But here we are not talking about buying labour power at the cheapest price. We are talking about the fact that large-scale industry and capitalist mass production, in order to accumulate as much capital as possible, increase its speed, and what the capitalist class wants, sacrifice the majority of society, that is, the millions of working masses, in the worst, most pitiful, and most criminal way. Their health is sacrificed for the sake of increasing profits. They do this so that the rich can get richer and richer. Workers are not only exploited, not only separated from their work, not only plunged into an abyss of absolute disenfranchisement, not only captured in bloodbaths. They also receive from the owners of capital what they receive as the means of reproducing their labour power in the form of deadly poisons that cause deadly diseases. This is the omnipresent decree of capital, which, dressed in the guise of the state, rights, laws, and even scientific licenses, constantly expands the boundaries of pollution, and under the cover of academic research, declares all elements, materials, and goods that are contaminated and disease-causing, free from any danger. You see this in every line and every small and large study in the capitalist world, where science, figures, discussion and reasoning are used to try to consider the goods produced as free from any risk to human health and society. What are these efforts for? The answer is obvious, the capitalist class owns all the means of production, owns production and plans it. It is this class that decides what should be produced, the amount of production and the content of the goods, and all of this is done in a way that ensures maximum profit. The working class is only supposed to produce capital and present it to the capitalists. In the logic of capital, workers not only have no right to protest against exploitation, the severity of exploitation, and their own injustices, but they must also remain silent in the face of all the crimes of capital in polluting the environment and making people’s food, clothing, breathing air, and drinking water pathogenic. One way to silence the working masses is to expose all the crimes that capital is committing in this transition, in the area of sacrificing the physical and mental health of people for greater profit. The bourgeoisie has a division of labour within itself. The task of misleading the minds and thoughts of the public about what capital is doing to people’s living environment, food, clothing, and health is also the responsibility of the elements, institutions, associations, and academic centers of the bourgeoisie. Thanks to all these weapons and mechanisms, capital ensures that the meagre wages of the worker or a very small part of the labour is spent on purchasing goods that contain various toxins, dirt, and impurities, goods that are a scourge to human life after and during consumption and that brutally destroy the environment. Yes, as long as these production relations based on the purchase and sale of labour exist, this has been and will continue to be the story of our lives. Capitalist governments, their research institutes, and the entire capitalist intellectual apparatus are not supposed to tell the truth, because in that case, the main ruler, who are the relations of production and their owners, have issued their own condemnation. Now, how do they hide the truth from us, mainly with these platitudes that, for example, such and such a quantity of poison, harmful metal, or pesticide is not that harmful to the body! Or in other words, some poison in the air, water, goods are part of daily life in this system. This is only if they announce the presence of poison in the environment, work and nature. In most cases and all over the world, all the planned and planned efforts of the bourgeoisie are to cover up every crime as much as possible.