Published on : 01/14/2023 – 08:45

A boat belonging to Canadian company The Metals Company (TMC) can be seen in the video broadcast by MinesWatch Canada, Greenpeace International and the Deep Sea Mining Campaign. There escapes a steady stream of brown water, it empties directly into the Pacific Ocean. The footage was shot by scientists aboard company-owned ships as it tested its deep-sea mining technology in the Clarion Clipperton area. These are the discharges from society’s mining of the seabed.

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” Normally, mining companies are supposed to send their waste to the depths, explains Anne-Sophie Roux from the Sustainable Ocean Alliance. Specifically, the boat on the surface is connected to the machine at a depth of 4,000 meters by a huge pipe. A first pipe brings all the precious metals to the top and a second pipe leads down through which they are supposed to bring the waste back. Precisely because scientists don’t have enough perspective on the effects it may have on the surface. As a result, we see that the company does not respect even the few rules imposed on it. »

However, The Metals Company’s operations are watched from all sides. In fact, it is the only company with a permit for deep-sea mining, a test validated by the International Seabed Authority while the development of a specific mining code is ongoing. Tough negotiation as the consequences for those still preserved areas can matter and the stakes can matter while the Abyss could be a potential godsend with the battery demand explosion. For this reason, more and more countries, including France, are calling for a moratorium on this issue.

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