Bike frames, ladders, nails, golf clubs, sinks, faucets, window frames, pots, pans, gates, cars, refrigerators, electric power lines, food cans, medicine packaging, aeroplanes...

How did all of these things make it into the same list you ask? The answer is aluminium. Everything on that list and many more consumer and industrial products are at least partly made from aluminium. But where does all that aluminium come from?

Bauxite is a sedimentary rock with a relatively high aluminium content and it is the world's main source of aluminium. It's usually found near close to the surface of the terrain so a surface mining technique is used to extract it.

Guinea, one of the world's poorest countries, has become one of the biggest exporters of bauxite over the past three years. Currently, the country has the world's largest bauxite reserves, almost one-fourth of all known reserves in the world. According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), Guinea is on its way to becoming the largest bauxite exporter in the world.