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Even though we know that the Coles eco tin was made in Thailand from imported and local

ingredients, we know nothing of the ecological or social context. Thailand has no significant

tuna fishery but is the world’s largest canned tuna export nation with 33% of global trade

(Globefish 2012). Of the sustainable tinned tuna companies that I have mentioned, only

Fish4Ever makes a point of talking about the location and people involved in the processing

of tuna in the Maldives. This is due to their particular sustainability standards, which involve

social, economic and ecological elements, and to the fact that canning also takes place in the

Maldives (see Fish4Ever 2016, sustainability page). At the time of my research Greenpeace’s

campaign focused solely on the fishery as the site of sustainability/unsustainability. In late

2015 Greenpeace launched a campaign directed at canneries in the Philippines and Indonesia.

The campaign used a similar ranking system to their tuna campaign. Yet, apart from a brief

mention of the importance of the wellbeing of workers along the supply network including

the cannery, the focus remains on the fishing practices and species, and on maintaining

traceability to the fishery (see Mitchell 2015, p. 4). There are many questions about the social

and ecological context of the canneries that remain. Such questions could be addressed by

following the tuna to the cannery, and further back.

Eventually we would arrive at the tin. Most tins are made from tinplate – a sheet of

rolled steel coated with a thin layer of pure tin to prevent rusting. Tin is rarely considered in

current sustainability discourse or even in historical accounts of canning, and this is

surprising given Britain’s past role as a major tin manufacturer (see Ryan 1952, p. 467). Yet

tin is the single most important element that makes the tinned food industry possible. In 2012

the three main tin mining nations were China (100,000 tonnes), Indonesia (41,000 tonnes)

and Peru (29,000 tonnes) (Mineral Resource Program 2013, p. 171). Tin production also has

environmental and social contexts. Although tin ore is only used for a thin layer coating and

demands far less than iPhones and other devices (Simpson 2012, pp. 1-3), it is still a

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