|
|
|
Mining by definition is an extractive industry, often with huge environmental and social impacts that persist long after the mine has closed.
Mining by definition is an extractive industry, often with huge environmental and social impacts that persist long after the mine has closed.
|
|
Mining & mineral resources
Can mining be sustainable?
The term “minerals” refers to a variety of materials found in the earth. It includes metals such as iron, copper, and gold; industrial
minerals, like lime and gypsum; construction materials such as sand and stone; and fuels, such as coal and uranium.
Mining by definition is an extractive industry, often with huge environmental and social impacts that persist long after the mine has closed. For example acid drainage (where sulphuric acid is created from rain falling on exposed tailings) is an especially long-lived problem.
The fact is that modern society is totally dependent on the products of mining--from cellphones, to ipods, to plows, cars and even roads. The challenge is further complicated given that many mining areas overlap with ancestral domains, forests and biodiversity-rich habitats.
In 2000, mines around the world extracted some 900 million tons of metal—and left behind some 6 billion tons of waste ore. This
figure does not include the overburden earth moved to reach the ores. There is no reliable way to dispose of billions
of tons of materials discreetly. Catastrophic spills of mine wastes in recent years have resulted in enormous fish kills, soil and water pollution, and damage to human health.
The human cost
Hundreds of thousands of people have been uprooted in order to make way for mine projects. Many others have had to forsake traditional occupations and endure the effects of living beside a mine that poisons their water supplies or near a smelter that pollutes the air they breathe.
Each year 14,000 mine workers are killed at accidents on the job, and many more are exposed to chemicals or particulates that
increase their risks of respiratory disorders and certain kinds of cancers.
Inefficiency
Mining is highly inefficient. Based on figures from the late 1990s mining consumed close to 10% of world energy is responsible for 13% of sulphur dioxide emissions and it is estimated that it threatens nearly 40% of the world's undeveloped tracts of forest. Yet it directly accounts for 0.5% of employment and 0.9 of GDP.
In 'Scrapping Mining Dependence' (Chapter 6 of State of the World 2003), Payal Sampat presents alternative ways in which the world can meet its demand for minerals. For example, it takes 95 percent less energy to produce aluminum from recycled materials than from bauxite ore; recycling copper takes between five and seven times less energy than processing ore; while recycled steel uses two to three-and-a-half times less. Yet, government policies still favor extraction, leaving recycling's potential poorly realized.
|
|
|
|