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In photos: The gold scavengers

In photos: The gold scavengers

Tuesday, February 11, 2014, 15:23 GMT+7

A number of people have earned their living by painstakingly scavenging for gold nuggets from the waste, or “pig,” discarded by goldsmiths’ shops.

“Pig” is the mixture of waste from goldsmiths’ shops which, after some time, maybe two or three years, gold scavengers scoop up from the manholes near the shops before “reprocessing” into gold nuggets. They coin their finds “pig” as it’s dirty and smelly yet financially rewarding.

Hunting for “pig” 

A group of workers came all the way from southern Hau Giang province to Ho Chi Minh City’s District 8. Their “workplace” was the manhole near a goldsmith’s shop on Pham The Hien street.

Khuong, the group leader, and his workers painstakingly dredged up the sewer. Their job differs from that of sewer sanitation workers in that the group cleared up and collected everything, even the mud smears on the wall of the manhole. Even the water used to dredge the sewer didn’t go to waste, as the workers carried the water home in large cans.

Khuong explained that while goldsmiths are working on a gold item, a considerable amount of gold dust is released, “landing” on household items and the goldsmiths’ clothes and body. Usually by the end of a day’s work, the shop owner requests that the goldsmiths take a shower and clean their tools. Gold dust thus mixes with the waste and goes down the sewer.

The shop owners typically attach filters to the sewers to catch the gold sediments, and after some time, they hire gold scavengers to collect the remnants of gold.

To assess the amount of gold to be extracted from the recently dug “pig,” Khuong scooped and mixed some of it into water. Under the sunlight, a tiny, shiny gold strip appeared.

“The tint is indicative of the total amount of gold that can be extracted from the recently recovered “pig.” The gold scavenger bargains with the goldsmiths’ shop owner on their share of the gold. Whether he makes a good profit or suffers losses all depends on the assessment and the bargain,” Khuong explained.

That day, Khuong and his team collected six sacks of “pig” and two 30-liter cans of waste liquid. He paid the goldsmiths’ shop owner 0.9 tael of gold (a tael, or 1.2 ounces, of 18K gold is currently worth around US$1,214), which he had with him at that time. He estimated that he will be able to extract some 1.3 taels from the “pig” and make a profit of some 0.4 tael.

Stewing the “pig”

Khuong’s team headed back to Hau Giang’s Chau Thanh A, where they would stew the “pig” in an oven in an attempt to extract the gold. The “pig,” which had been preliminarily processed and dried, was put into jars. Khuong mixed it with soda, borax, and lead powder before putting the jars into the oven. The “pig” is usually cooked thoroughly after one day.

Stewing the “pig” means melting the mixture and separating dirt from the assortment of metals, including gold, silver, bronze, lead, aluminum, and iron.

Khuong then blew fire into the metal alloy so that the lead would evaporate. He then steeped it in nitric acid (HNO3), which corrodes all the other metals before turning into water. The water is removed, leaving gold in the form of reddish brown powder. The gold powder will then be melted and left to cool down and condense into a pinkie-sized gold nugget.

Khuong continued to do this with the rest of the “pig” for one week and collected a total of some 1.5 tael, which exceeded his expectations.

Local gold scavengers unofficially divide themselves into three ranks based on their gold extracting approaches. Khuong’s approach is considered intermediate and can extract some 95% of gold from the “pig.”

Meanwhile, the method adopted by Long, another gold scavenger, is considered elementary. Instead of stewing the “pig” in an oven like Khuong does, Long uses an apparatus to blow fire and stew the “pig.” This method can extract only 90% of gold from the “pig” while emitting profuse thick smoke and a foul odor.

The advanced yet most toxic approach, which is adopted by Hai and his team from Can Tho City, can extract up to 99% of the gold from the “pig.” However, it uses cyanide, a highly toxic chemical, to extract the gold. Hai said he and his team always take extreme caution and stay far away from residential areas.

Hai puts all his “pig” into a cement tank placed in a less frequented strip of land. He then dilutes cyanide with water and pours it onto the tank. After three days, everything in the tank is melted into water, which is chemically treated to allow the gold to settle at the bottom as powder sediments. The gold sediments are then melted in a fire and left to cool off before condensing into balls of gold.

“I’ll put hydrochloric acid (HCl) into the noxious cyanide mixture and let it seep into the soil. The toxin will decompose itself after some time,” Hai reassuringly explained, although he admitted that great hazards to the workers and the environment are always present.

Gold doesn’t come easy

According to Khuong, though some make a fortune out of the gold scavenging job, earning some 40 taels at one time, many suffer huge losses and quit the job.

Novices and less experienced scavengers easily fall into debt. Hai recalled that in early 2013, he bought some “pig” in Vinh Long province for 0.8 tael, but managed to extract only 0.3 tael from the “pig,” thus suffering a loss of 0.5 tael.

Local scavengers have spread by word of mouth a tale about a jewelry shop owner, who, in 1982,  liquefied some 24 taels of his gold and stored it in a can, which looked just like his many cans of oil. He took all the cans with him while attempting to cross the border, but he was nabbed on the way and all his cans, including the one containing liquid gold, were seized.

Considered useless, the can of gold was then discarded and the liquid gold seeped into the soil, causing the grass to wither.

Ten years later, the jewelry shop owner asked one of his best friends in Vietnam to retrace the can of gold.

The friend bought the 2m2 plot of soil for a high price and “stewed” the soil and extracted almost 24 taels of gold.

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