"THEY MAKE ZINC AT SWANSEA" 1960s SMELTING & PRODUCTION OF ZINC METAL SWANSEA, WALES UK XD11884
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- Опубликовано: 23 апр 2020
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This color educational film is about zinc smelting at the Swansea Vale Spelter Works. It was made in the early 1960s based on information in the film itself. Swansea is a coastal city and county, officially known as the City and County of Swansea in Wales. During the 19th-century industrial heyday, Swansea was the key centre of the copper-smelting industry, earning the nickname Copperopolis. In 1876, the Swansea Vale works were the first smelter to be built in Britain primarily for the production of zinc metal.
Opening: Men in a factory. They pull a hot ore from the furnace. Push it down a cooling hole. Grab another. Close on the furnace. Close on a working man's face. The men poke holes in the center of what they pulled out, tubelike structures. The men are doing horizontal retort zinc smelting. The men throw things into a furnace and then poke at it with rods. The smelting continues. Horizontal distillation (:14-2:49). Exterior of a factory. Opening credits: They Make Zinc At Swansea - the imperial smelting process (a blast furnace method for the production of zinc and lead) (2:50-3:53). Exteriors of new plant at Swansea Vale. Animation of smelting is shown and explained in great detail (3:54-5:48). More animation continues to explain the process - various stages and what is used in great detail. Vapors, the cooling, water, lead, gases, etc. (The smelting process is shown in its entirety) (5:49-8:55). A machine glides down a rail, looks like a mini train. A crane lifts a metal case. The metal case is carried by another crane and then lowered. Metallurgical coke comes up a conveyor belt, its the macroporous solid carbon material which is produced by the carbonization of coking coals during the destructive distillation of coal. Exterior of the plant. Charge control room. Close on controls. A worker monitors the systems. Other parts of the plant are in service. Two tubes go up and are carried by a crane like device (8:56-12:13). A furnace that produces zinc. A worker pulls up a rod. A man in the control room hangs up a phone and moves around. Exterior of a compressor. A man writes things on a chart in the control room. A glimpse into the combustion zone. Man stands near a furnace as sparks fly (12:14-14:11). Close on sparks flying in the plant. Molten lead is cast as poured. Furnace exteriors. Ash is cleaned. Water in an exterior part of the plant (14:12-15:41). Zinc and lead are separated. Zinc droplets float on top of the molten lead. A man charts in the control room. A worker near the furnace. A pail has parts on fire. Zinc is poured and kept at casting temperatures. Zinc slabs are cast by a machine. A man uses the machine. Close on parts of the machine. Zinc slabs are picked up and stacked by a worker. A forklift pick up some zinc. Stacks of zinc are loaded on slabs. Exterior of the factory. Animated map of Europe and France. France is building a new factory for smelting. Workers hoist steel beams and use cranes. Workers build (15:42-20:06). Africa - northern Rhodesia, Broken Hill. A new factory is being built there as well. A smelting furnace is being worked on. A crane hoists. Men move a heavy beam. Workers maneuver and build. A man directs others. Exterior of a factory being built. Australia, new South Wales. The new factory was built in 1961. Exteriors of it. Imperial smelting furnace. They make more zinc at Swansea (20:07-22:14). End credits (22:15-22:21).
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The Vale works closed in 1974.
I live six miles away, further up the Valley - and nearly half a century later the Valley is still recovering from the destruction and pollution this business caused.
The air was filled with noxious gases, the ground was (and still is) poisoned, whole swathes of the Valley were rendered sterile for decades.
Nothing grew, no plants, not even the weeds could face the filth.
And many many people's lives were shortened by the pollution, though the numbers of deaths were covered up by politicians.
Good riddance to them all!
Sounds a lot like Copper Hill, Tennessee.
gw3ucj a process that includes adding sodium to remove arsenic with no fume hood, what you possibly go wrong there
They've been remediating Cockle Creek for a long time and only started building on the former Pasminco site a few years ago. Still lots of health problems.
@@rossmum Sure. With the remains of toxic substances there has to be.
Zinc and lead and cadmium and tantalum and arsenic are still manufactured, and in vast quantities. They are essential for almost any modern convenience we enjoy.
You think conditions in China or Vietnam or India are any better? In fact they are almost certainly far worse. So long as the "poison" is not in your backyard, eh? Made your comment on a computer, did you? How many grams of heavy metals and poisons were created so you could have that computer or phone?
Of course no one wants pollution, but excessively onerous environmental and safety regulations have played a huge role, and may be the key factor, in driving manufacturing out of Western countries. In a sense these regs are taxes on the working class by the middle and upper classes, who don't want such gauche things as heavy industry in their sightlines. How much of that is driven by sheer class contempt is anyone's guess.
Before you get all sanctimonious my wife is a professional environmental engineer in 3 states and does more for the environment by lunch on Monday than probably anyone commenting here has done in their life.
"Thank goodness I still live in a world of telephones, car batteries, handguns and many things made of zinc."
come back zinc, come back
This is what I came here for.
My God, what have I done!
Don't forget car parts, door handles, roofing materials, nappy rash cream and bicycle frame alloys.
"The firing pin in your revolver was made from zinc"
Other than on the Simpsons I doubt that is true except on the cheapest handguns.
Not sure why this popped up on my RUclips recommended suggestions but watched it anyway and feel more enlightened and grateful for our ancestors for carrying out this hazardous task.
Fascinating color zinc smelter industrial film. Thanks for sharing! Hey, note in the old smelting process the lack of personal safety gear! No hard hats, safety goggles, protective suits, hearing protection and not all wearing gloves around all the moving equipment, heat, fumes and dirt. Yeah, I suppose, this is when "men were men."
Thank you for the comment. Those men may have been paid on a production basis and found that safety gear only slowed them down. Just an informed guess but it was pretty common back then.
Why bother with safety gear when the fumes would kill you in a few years?
More like "workers werent people"
Dying for a wage makes you a man, got it.
@@janeblogs324 "dying for a barely scraping by wage makes you a man" ftfy.
I was brought up near these Works. The Lower Swansea Valley was as barren as The Moon in those days, and less hospitable. Nothing grew there, not even weeds. It's different now all the industry has gone.
One of the crazies brought into the Barney Miller precinct thought he was a time traveler from the future. Harris asked the guy what the precious metal of the future would be. He responded, authoritatively, “zinc!” Harris called his broker and asked, “What is zinc going for these days?” ......”Thirty five cents A TON!?!?” And hung up. 😂
No he winds up buying several tons and the crazy guy gives him a thumbs up.
I remember when he bought gold from the guy that was holed up in his apartment, and he got a disappointing coin! Or when he invested in that awful painting from an artist that was dying, and he kept on checking on his medical status! Oh, Harris! He SHOULD have invested in the hash brownies! LOL!!!!
@@hckyplyr9285 Haha!
I think a documentary voiced over in a british accent makes it so much better. He could talk about something super toxic & deadly & make it seem like a walk in the park. 😂
Interesting film. It reminds me of a Simpsons episode where Bart's class was watching a zinc documentary.
They got lovely new flats and houses where that works was in the lower Swansea valley now. Beautiful, they are. And all that muck and poison have all gone, it have. It's a tidy place. All the trees and all the grass.....you are lucky if you lives down there , you are. Mind you, I wouldn't let the children play outside in the gardens. Not for a good couple of thousand years yet.
The poor bastards who had to work in those smelters. The toxic fumes must have had them dropping like flies - as well as everyone downwind
"had to work in those" -- it wasn't Communism, they didn't have to.
The town of Swansea , Massachusetts was founded by my ancestors and a few other very old New England families .
Hard and tough jobs.
Geez what an enviromental and worker health nightmare
Actually the new plant looks perfectly adequate, please point out where worker health is at risk.
Duh 1:18 2:30
See the green flames? The smoke they are breathing?
@@janeblogs324 Yes, this smoke can give a nasty fever, or it can be fatal too.
I bet you didn't expect the metallic sodium to remove arsenic!
I wonder if it removed it by neutralizing it or just released it in that thick black cloud of smoke?
Back in the days when Northern Rhodesia was still a Country.
I was glad that guy noticed the block start to swing, after he turned his back on it.
Thanks, Periscope! Very intersting. Thanks again!
Return to sinter, process unknown ...
Zinc vapor is blue - not poisonius but if too much in your body affects your nerves giving the "zinc shakes" - I zinc so.....
Come back, zinc!
Talk about sweat shops!
I remember a zink smelter in Blackwell Oklahoma! Shut down in the 70s or 80s.
Meh. For those shocked at the safety conditions at the beginning of the film, I worked at a far worse place in the US in the 90s. Look up the FMC Phosporous Chemicals plant in Pocatello, ID. It's a Superfund site now. Sulfur dioxide is fun, phos burns hurt like hell, and you couldn't see your hand in front of your face in the coke proportioning building.
Gee, and there weren't any other jobs? You just had to work there, eh?
@@ArthurDentZaphodBeeb Not my point. The point was as industrial places ho, these ones in Swansea were far from the worst, or even bad.
FMC is an interesting company. At one point they have made machinery for canning food, RVs, tire mounting and balancing machines, specialty chemicals and they were a defense contractor. I am sure they were in to way more stuff than that over the years, those are just the ones I personally remember.
yeah but you had all the fredumb, apparenly.
Warm in winter ...
This should be shown in every women's studies class before they start bashing men of old.
The women knew, they were desperatelky saving up for a coffin.
#LobsterPeopleArentNormal
Lucky men taking it easy at the Zinc plant when women had to get the dinner on and do ironing.
Best comment I've read all week. You get the gold star.
Yes, all those feminists honing their skills. 😃
They were extra lucky to be together since they were all gay, an effect from breathing in zinc fumes all day.
See? The women folk had to work with iron!
back in the 1700s when I was a little boy we didn't have zinc , we had to use a zinc substitute called mud
2:00 Kirk Douglas!
turned young men into old men and young women into widows
bit like the production of petrol and harvesting of electricity, with the right education you'll believe the story's told without question
sorry...but... with the right education you would have written "stories" not story's... too many greengrocer's apostrophes in this world!
Anyone remember NJ Zinc in Palmerton PA ?
Old way: zinc is produced in an artesian fashion, and the men work hard but are fairly paid. New way: lead, a known poison, is produced with zinc by machines and the men are paid minimum wage and get lead poisoning. Progress!
I would have much rather worked at the automated plant.
Just watching them at the old plant made my back hurt.
Those guys all look strong
At 7.06 the narrator refers to "gang, coke ash and fluxes".What is "gang"?
Genedaly useles crap.
It called 'gangue' and is the unwanted material in ore or mineral deposits
Shut down in 1960 ? Looks medieval, but that's British industry for you.
Closed on 1971.
I’m courious what is the major use of sink?
To wash dishes.
moggs -sorry autocorrect ,sink not sink ,oh ! it did it again ,z i n k Zinc ZINK
@@solstar4778 It's O.K., I knew what you meant. I was being wicked. ☺
@@solstar4778 Corrosion protection for steel, it's applied to steel in paints, by galvanising or electroplating. It reacts instead of the steel so the steel doesn't rust. If you see a farm gate or some fencing that has a grey or silver look to it, that is most probably glavanised steel. This stuff can last well over 20 years without rusting. You'll own something that is has zinc to prevent corrosion.
Lots of things are cast from zinc as well. Plumbing fixtures, light fixtures, auto parts, appliance parts, gun parts.
If you're old enough to remember metal trashcans...those were all zinc plated to avoid rusting.
So wher jar lids😃 and thay where solled ZINK
Most screws and bolts have zinc plating (galvanizing). Zinc is everywhere
What are you even talking about? They still make metal trashcans!
@@jermainerace4156 I think he's talking about before we had the standard dump stye modern type w\ plastic lid and lift bar kind of trash container back in the late 60 s and early 70. / we had to put trash in 3 or 4 galvanized cans for that trash truck , MAN , WHEN THE CITY BROUGHT US THEM NEW PLASTIC TRASH BENS WE GOT RID OF THOSE 'ZINK " TYPE GARBAGE CANS !THANKS J R 😁
Galvalume yes zincs properties to outstand corrosion are impeccable...
Zoinks....
I want to live in a world without zinc.
No more pinnes?
Sorry, you will have to find some other alternate universe with a different periodic table of the elements.
With out zinc our bodies whuld be like mush or rubber. : we whuld not exist w/ out zinc # zinc for ever 💎
Zinc is just as important as any other element like salt or copper and IRON , JUST THINK ABOUT A 🌎 WORLD WITH OUT METTEL , THAT WHULD NOT BE GOOD 😅😭
You fool! Do you really want to live in a world without telephones, car batteries, handguns, and many other things made with zinc?
My father and two uncles worked at ‘the Vale’ . My father was a foreman in charge of goods and one uncle in charge of ‘the men’. The other uncle was a train driver.
liyyle did they know the uk gov replaced silver with zinc coins in 1953, so the guys could have just turned the zinc into money. and paid themselves.
At 120 tonnes a day its only 473 north american train cars per year per product. 1.16 car loads a day per commodity. Not that large
Why is the title of this video shouting at me???
Do they make anything at Swansea any more?
deformed babies.
John. Like many other locations, it's service industry nowadays.
@@PeterWalkerHP16c Fool.
Steel, lots and lots of steel.
@@MOGGS1942 Still loads of steel being made
1960s?? If it was B&W I'd think it was the 1920s.
WHAT'S IT GOT TO DO WITH SUBMARINES?
Submarines zinc in the ocean, duh!
One of my least favorite metals.
SomervilleBob : try living without it!!!!......... incidentely the Cov-id-19 Hydroxi-chlorquin ,azithromycine protocol the Active ingredient is Zinc sulfate
LOL
You probably have something that is zinc plated or galvanised within a few meters of yourself. You oven will most certainly have zinc plated or galvanised parts.
US used to make things.
Yeah, but this video isn't in the US.
LOL All the people complaining about conditions who've never worked a decent day in their lives.
That 40 hour workweek you enjoy is thanks to the complainers.
And yet they've probably pay far more tax than the "woking clas" which doesn't really exist anymore, which is good.
RHODESIA NEVER DIE