馃攳
How 800 Million Pounds of Himalayan Salt Are Mined Each Year | Big Business - YouTube
Channel: Business Insider
[3]
himalayan salt
[4]
doesn't actually come from the himalayas
[6]
it's mined 186 miles away in pakistan
[10]
thanks to its pink hue and supposed
[12]
health benefits
[13]
the salt has exploded in popularity
[15]
since the late 2000s
[17]
today it's turned into lamps statues and
[20]
of course
[20]
table salt but extracting the coveted
[23]
salt means descending into dark caves
[26]
then blasting and carrying heavy rock i
[28]
don't have
[39]
we went inside the mine turning this
[40]
mountain into 400
[42]
000 tons of pink salt each year the
[45]
kayode salt mine here in the punjab
[47]
region of pakistan
[48]
is the second largest salt mine in the
[50]
world the pink salt comes from remnants
[52]
of ancient seabeds
[54]
that crystallized 600 million years ago
[56]
legend has it it was
[58]
actually alexander the great's horse
[60]
that first discovered these salt rocks
[61]
when it stopped to take a lick
[63]
then under british rule salt mining
[65]
ramped up in the 1870s
[67]
today it's a popular tourist destination
[70]
and a working mine producing the
[72]
majority of the world's pink salt
[75]
all the mining starts here at the train
[77]
station this train takes miners deep
[79]
into the mountain
[80]
here tunnels stretch for 25 miles and
[82]
it's always 64 degrees fahrenheit
[93]
300 miners work these dark chambers
[96]
they've used many of the same mining
[97]
tools for over a century
[112]
foreign
[137]
only half of the mountain salt is
[138]
actually mined the rest
[140]
is used for structural support so the
[142]
chambers don't collapse
[146]
tractors haul the mine salt out of the
[147]
mountain each day miners excavate over a
[150]
thousand tons of salt
[151]
or about the weight of 157 elephants
[154]
outside they search for blocks with the
[156]
best shape and coloring to send to
[157]
manufacturers
[158]
once picked the blocks are loaded up on
[160]
trucks either by hand or crane
[162]
and sent across pakistan historically
[165]
pakistan couldn't process this raw pink
[167]
salt
[168]
so much of it was exported to india
[170]
cheaply india would treat the salt
[172]
label it as made in india and sell it at
[174]
a premium
[175]
pakistan saw little of the profits npr
[178]
reported that a ton of salt sold to
[179]
india for 40
[181]
could fetch 300 in europe in 2019
[184]
a social media campaign calling for the
[186]
end of salt exports to india
[187]
went viral that same year the pakistani
[190]
government banned all assault exports to
[192]
india
[193]
the goal returning the profits to
[194]
pakistan 23 percent
[218]
but some pakistani salt exporters
[220]
suffered they didn't speak english
[222]
and couldn't meet europe's tough import
[224]
standards only about a dozen
[226]
exporters saw an opportunity to sell
[227]
products under pakistani labels
[229]
directly to europe muhammad was one of
[232]
them every month he purchases 300 tons
[234]
of salt from the mine
[235]
for his company himalayan decor
[238]
international
[240]
[Music]
[270]
most of the work is done by hand but
[272]
drills and saws have sped up the process
[274]
in recent years
[292]
over in karachi rm salt pakistan
[309]
12 to 15 kg ranges basically blocks are
[312]
fed into the grinder and broken down
[314]
into smaller grains
[315]
workers bag and weigh a thousand of
[317]
these pouches of pink salt every hour
[319]
like mohammed's factory rm salt also
[321]
makes lamps and other specialty products
[323]
after the raw material we get
[325]
we convert it with a different shape as
[327]
per our order like you can see in the
[330]
cutting machine he is cutting different
[332]
sizes
[333]
on this saw water prevents dust from
[335]
flying up but on the grinders it's not
[337]
possible
[337]
which is why muhammad's staff wore masks
[339]
even before the pandemic
[341]
over at rm salt as you can see this
[344]
facility
[345]
we have installed a vacuum through which
[348]
we can
[349]
absorb the dust this is the order of usa
[352]
one of our clients we are making these
[354]
goods for them the moon shape and the
[356]
hardship as well
[356]
double drill washing processes
[363]
the lamps are then coated with the gel
[365]
to prevent humidity from interacting
[367]
with the salt
[367]
and then they're shrink wrapped arm salt
[370]
ships 30 containers of products every
[372]
month
[372]
muhammad exports about 80 of his
[374]
products primarily to western countries
[376]
like the us uk and spain where demand
[379]
has spiked in the last decade because of
[381]
the alleged health benefits
[405]
however it's such a very small
[408]
percentage of the salt it makes up these
[410]
minerals
[410]
you are highly unlikely to get any real
[413]
benefit
[414]
or any trace of them in your regular
[416]
serving
[417]
of salt itself but nutritionally it's
[419]
pretty much similar to regular salt
[422]
it's also pretty similar tasting to sea
[424]
salt but others claim himalayan salt
[426]
has healing powers whether inhaled used
[429]
in spa treatments or
[430]
in lamp form there's a lot of different
[432]
homeopathic remedies that can seem very
[435]
very appealing but actually they're not
[436]
grounded in evidence
[438]
and it's these false health claims that
[439]
have driven the price up
[441]
himalayan salt can cost up to 20 times
[443]
the price of normal table salt
[445]
normally your price is
[461]
but that money doesn't always make it
[462]
back to the miners they take home less
[464]
than 1 500 rupees a day
[466]
not much more than the cost of this bag
[468]
of himalayan sea salt at walmart
[470]
and those salaries have stayed the same
[472]
even though pakistan has severed its
[473]
salty relationship with india
[475]
and the pink salt is seeing growing
[490]
luckily the mountain won't run out of
[491]
salt anytime soon it's estimated only
[493]
about 220 million tons of salt have been
[496]
excavated here
[497]
nothing compared to the nearly 6.7
[499]
billion tons left
[509]
i
Most Recent Videos:
You can go back to the homepage right here: Homepage