A strip of pristine forest stands at the edge of a industrial mining site near Desa Pemali on the Indonesian island Bangka. The island is scattered with mining sites, creating a landscape full of barren craters. Photograph: Marten van DijlA strip of pristine forest stands at the edge of a industrial mining site near Desa Pemali on the Indonesian island Bangka. The island is scattered with mining sites, creating a landscape full of barren craters. Photograph: Marten van DijlA man shows his yield of tin after a day’s mining in a pit along a road near Airanyir, Merawang-Bangka, in Bangka. Photograph: Marten van DijlA man washes off mud from a pit wall with a hose along a road near Airanyir, Merawang-Bangka. Photograph: Marten van DijlYoung men drive their scooters along a road near Airanyir, Merawang-Bangka. People living on the island start working in mining pits from a young age. Photograph: Marten van DijlWorkers use rafts with rubber tubes to look for tin in a large pit at an illegal mining site in the forests of Bangka. Workers risk health hazards and arrest for small quantities of tin, which they say fetches more money than fishing or farming. Photograph: Marten van DijlA boy dips in the dirty water of a mine pit at an illegal mining site in the forests near Dusun Talang Balai, Bangka. Photograph: Marten van DijlWorkers strip layers of earth to uncover tin in a pit at an illegal mining site in the forest area of Bangka. Photograph: Marten van DijlTwo men check their yield of tin in a pit after a day’s mining at a site near Samfur, Bangka. Photograph: Marten van DijlHooded workers look on as two men work in a small pit to look for tin on Rebo beach of Bangka. Photograph: Marten van DijlA little boat at open sea off the coast of Bangka, near Nelayan village, is used for small-sclae tin mining. Rubber tubes are used to pump the sand from the ocean floor to the boat, where it is sorted for tin. Photograph: Marten van DijlA miner checks sand pumped up by rubber tubes from the sea floor for tin on an island of rafts off the coast of Bangka, near Tanjung Gunung. Photograph: Marten van DijlEmployees of Serumpun Sebalai, a tin smelter in Kecamatan Pangkalan Baru on Bangka, weigh a bag with tinsand collected from different mining sites on the island, before processing in an oven heated to 1,300C. Tons of tinsand are melted into ingots, that are then exported via Singapore to Europe and China. Photograph: Marten van DijlA worker at a smelter handles melted tin from an oven before turning it into ingots. Photograph: Marten van DijlA worker shows a piece of melted tin used to test quality. Tin from Bangka island eventually ends up as solder in millions of mobile phones, laptops and computers in Europe, US and Asia. Photograph: Marten van Dijl
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