The gold mining industry is facing a harsh truth. It has to deal with an increasing number of health issues faced by miners, and account for the damage it causes to the environment.
As reported by Finews Asia, “gold mining happens on every continent except for Antarctica and is extracted from mines of widely varying types and scale. China was the world’s largest gold producer in 2018 and accounted for approximately 12 percent of total global production, followed by Australia, Russia, the U.S., and Canada. The world’s gold production affects the price of gold, and like most commodities, the price of gold depends on supply, demand and short-term trading by speculators.â€? For many of the top gold-producing countries, “mining brings employment, foreign direct investment, foreign exchange, and tax revenues. Mine production was roughly 3,500 tonnes in 2018, up from 2,400 in 2010. However, despite the increase over this period, gold mining production has not changed significantly since 2016. One reason is that the “easy gold” has already been mined and miners now must dig deeper to access quality gold reserves. This has led to additional problems as miners are exposed to new hazards, and the environmental impact is heightened. In short, it costs more to get less gold. These factors add to the costs of gold mine production, sometimes resulting in higher gold prices.â€?
However, miners must dig increasingly deeper to access gold reserves. And new problems surface as miners dig deeper for gold—health risks to miners have soared while environmental costs have ballooned.
Now, Clean Mining (a part of the Clean Earth Technologies group) has a novel thiosulphate-based solution for the gold mining industry that is non-toxic and eco-friendly. This solution makes the mining process safer and allows the industry to grow in a more sustainable manner.
*Source: Finews Asia
