Mol - Zilvermeer - sand extraction

The current Zilvermeer was excavated before 1870. At that time there were no bulldozers and sand scoopers: everything was done with manual labor. Workers had to stake the sand with stakes and burlap sacks out of the mire.

It all started a few years after Belgian independence in 1831. A skipper from Antwerp sailed along the Herentals-Bochelt canal . He transported sand and saw the white sand along the dikes of the canal. That had remained there after the canal had been dug out. He took a sample of the sand to his supplier and the sand turned out to be of high quality. The skipper found that quite interesting and that was the beginning of a rich man's life.

Stanislas Emsens saw bread in the sand. The Emsens family, founder and owner of the current multinational SCR-Sibelco, is now one of the richest in the country. The family's assets: some 3.3 billion euros. That is about 16 000 workers' homes worth EUR 200 000. "How a dime can roll", they would say in the Netherlands, but know that at the basis of this enormous wealth lies the manual labor of many Kempen workers.

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