Mineral Processing Operations

Mineral processing facilities visited during the fieldwork included active ingenios at Machacamarca and Poopó, waste rock piles at Santa Rita, San José and Poopó, and tailings reprocessing operations at Huanuni, Machacamarca and Itos. Two commercializadora operations were also visited to the Southern fringe of the Oruro urban area.

5.4.1. State Processing Operations

Managers at Mina Huanuni confirmed that Veneristas and Palliris working with mining co-operatives ceased waste reprocessing activities outside Mina Huanuni in 2007, when the government re- nationalised the mine and re-assigned them to other work as employees. Most remained working in surface reprocessing roles as Relaveras, although some took on manual roles inside the mine. Those working as Relaveras earn significantly more than many of their counterparts elsewhere. Of the 5,000 mine employees, 100 women work as Relaveras outside the mine, reprocessing ingenio waste along the local river. There is no reprocessing of waste rock at the mine.

A visit to the riverbank downstream of the mine confirmed that a large number of Relaveras work in small, mixed-sex teams (cuadrillas) alongside the river for a distance of 2 Kilometres below Mina Huanuni (see Site Visit 11 in Appendix F). The Relaveras receive deliveries of ingenio waste from the mine, which they mix with water and feed it into buddles, to recover cassiterite. Most Relaveras were women, and all had overalls, sun hats, gloves and gumboots, and were the only Relaveras encountered during the fieldwork with protective clothing issued by their employer. The Relaveras were more reluctant than other workers to provide comment, but during a short conversation, two confirmed that: “Most of us used to be Palliris or Lameras with the co-operatives, but this work is now banned by the owner.” (interview #4).

Ingenio Machacamarca is operated by Empresa Mina Huanuni, and processes run of mine from Mina

Huanuni. A guided tour of the site (see Site Visit 12 in Appendix F, page 191) revealed that 30 staff were employed at the site, including three women ex-Palliris who maintain the shaking tables and two other women who work in administrative roles. Much of the apparatus in the ingenio appeared to be very old, with no guarding or worker protection features installed. Several concrete buddles had been built on the

outside of the ingenio, but were disused. Process wastewater was discharged into a new tailings lagoon, rather than directly into the local stream as occurred in the past.

5.4.2. Private Processing Operations

COMIBOL mining and processing operations at Itos were closed after the Tin Crisis. However, a private company is reprocessing tailings waste below the old ingenio. This work is being conducted by Baremsa SA (see Site Visit 5 in Appendix F), which is a Canadian joint venture operation with the Bolivian government, to recover valuable metal from tailings waste and stabilize the resulting waste products. This operation involves a series of a high technology mechanised processes, and has very few employees. There was no evidence that Relaveras had been reprocessing the tailings prior to Baremsa SA starting its operations.

Ingenio Tiwanaku near Mina Poopó provides mineral processing options for small mines and Commercializadoras (see Site Visit 16 in Appendix F, page 194). Interestingly it does not serve the adjacent mine, as it does not have the capacity to cope with current production.

Visits were made to operations at two Commercializadora sites in Oruro (see Site Visits 17 and 18 in Appendix F). Both operations were broadly similar, in that they operated as intermediaries between the mine worker co-operatives and the foundry or exporter, and provided a prompt means of providing mineral suppliers with payment. Incoming mineral loads were removed from trucks manually, categorised, graded and re-packaged on site. Mechanical plant was available for crushing and screening, but all loading and unloading work was manual. Staff at these sites were exclusively male, with the exception of two female administrative assistants at one site, neither of whom had any prior experience of the mining sector.

Major works were also underway on the waste rock piles at Mina San José, in a remediation project funded via the European Union’s APEMIN II project. The waste rock piles had been profiled and compacted. At the time of visit, the works were being completed, with perimeter drainage and a soil covering being applied. This was manual work conducted by a workforce of approximately 20 contractors to the project, five of whom were women.

5.4.3. Mine Worker Co-operative Processing Operations

The most significant reprocessing activity by artisanal mine worker co-operatives was encountered outside Ingenio Machacamarca (see Site Visit 13, Appendix F, page 192). Three co-operatives were

working the historic tailings waste from the nearby COMIBOL ingenio. They used primitive buddles to reprocess the tailings, which had a design almost identical to those viewed below Mina Huanuni. Only a handful of the 90 workers in these co-operatives were women.

Three Palliris were seen working on the waste rock piles below Mina Santa Rita (see Site Visit 2 in Appendix F, page 175). Two were women and one was a man. The male Palliri left before he could be interviewed but the women revealed that they were sisters, and that they worked on the waste piles because they were too old to work inside the mine with their co-operative. The two female Palliris made very similar statements about their work options: “I am too old to work inside the mine, but my co-

operative lets me work on waste piles.” (interview #2), and “We are too old to work inside the mine so

we have to work on the waste rock piles” (interview #3).

During the site visit to Mina San José, several women members of mine worker co-operatives were encountered doing mining sector support work, such as selling food and doing laundry work. None of these women were willing to comment, other than to tell me the work they did.