At first, tin was obtained mostly by panning or from small mines, but as demand expanded, so did the sophistication of mining methods, and the damage caused by them. There was a huge boom in demand with as the Industrial Revolution spread across the world, with tin being used to coat machinery to prevent rust.
If you had come to Phuket in the 1930s, you would not have recognised it. More than 200 muddy lakes pitted the countryside, as tin dredgers chomped their way across the countryside, leaving a moonscape in their wake.
Demand for Phuket’s tin died fairly abruptly in the late 1980s, partly with the advent of plastics, but also because sources easier to exploit were found elsewhere. As tourism began to take hold in the 1980s, opposition to heavy industry that destroyed natural beauty killed off tin mining.