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Blue Sea, Blue Sky, Black Lead |
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Not far from the long, wide beaches near the Greek capital of Athens is the small-town port of Lavrion. It’s a place to pass through quickly, for the harbor is ringed by man-made mountains of lead ore, one of the worst and most persistent substances mined by man. Because of the polluted landscape, many Greek residents have fled from the city or passed away. And that’s why Lavrion has plenty of space to house illegal refugees detained before they, too, can move from a town whose current assets and Classical wealth depended on the heaviest of heavy metals. Enter Lavrion by boat or car and you get, literally, that leaden feeling, the sense of a mistake made again and again for thousands of years. In Lavrion, lead lasts, humans waste away.