Rio Tinto: The Mining Giant Pollutes Indonesia's Environment

Founded in 1873, Rio Tinto began operations as The Rio Tinto Company by mining copper in Rio Tinto, Spain. Over the next few decades, the company expanded its mining business to many countries across the world. By 1954, the company had divested/sold-off most of its Spanish businesses. In 1962, the British operations of The Rio Tinto Company and The Consolidated Zink Corporation (a British mining company) merged to form The Rio Tinto Zinc Corporation (RTZ).

During the same year, the Australian operations of these two companies were merged to form Conzinc Rio Tinto of Australia (CRA). RTZ went on to develop many major mining projects such as Neves Corvo (copper and tin) in Portugal, Palabora (copper) in South Africa and Rossing (uranium) in Namibia. Between 1968 and 1985, the company expanded its interests to include cement, chemicals, oil and gas, and it even manufactured products for construction and automotive industries.