Ford's Electric Pickup Is Built From Metal That's Damaging the Amazon
FEBRUARY 26, 2023
Authors:
Jessica Brice
RAINFOREST INVESTIGATIONS FELLOW
Sheridan Prasso
The Big Business of Deforestation
A Bloomberg investigation traced much of the aluminum in the F-150 to a refinery in Brazil accused of sickening thousands of people
The new all-electric model of America’s best-selling pickup truck, the Ford F-150, relies on aluminum to keep it light and give it speed. With no delay from a piston-firing combustion engine, it can bolt like a high-performance sports car from zero to 60 in 4 seconds. It emits no exhaust, makes no sound.
Yet its impact can be heard a world away — in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. That’s where the Ford F-150’s troubled trail of aluminum begins.
Aluminum used to frame the truck’s passenger compartment can be traced back from Ford Motor Co.’s historic Rouge assembly complex in Dearborn, Michigan, to a parts manufacturer in Pennsylvania, to a smelter in Canada and, ultimately, to Brazil. There, in the heart of the Amazon, rust-colored bauxite is being clawed from a mine that has long faced allegations of pollution and land appropriation. And, near where the Amazon River empties into the Atlantic, a refinery that processes the ore stands accused of sickening thousands of people.
A class-action lawsuit on behalf of 11,000 residents of neighborhoods surrounding that refinery, Hydro Alunorte, names owner Norsk Hydro ASA of Norway as responsible for polluting their rivers and streams. The suit cites toxic mud containing elevated levels of aluminum and other heavy metals, which are byproducts of refining bauxite into alumina, the white powder that becomes aluminum. Alunorte’s actions, it alleges, have caused health problems such as cancer, hair loss, neurological dysfunction, birth defects and increased mortality.
More:
https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/fords-electric-pickup-built-metal-thats-damaging-amazon
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