Note:This article was adapted from the introduction of this article.
Mining has been identified as one of the human activities that may negatively impact the quality of the environment. As a process that removes soil and vegetation and produces burial beneath waste disposal sites, mining destroys natural ecosystems.
From physical or habitat destruction accompanying the loss of bio-diversity resources to the accumulation of pollutants in different media of the environment, mining has various impacts. Therefore, mining sites are a permanent toxicological problem for the surrounding ecosystems and human health. Like any productive activity, the exploitation of mineral resources produces negative impacts on the three elements in the environment: water, atmosphere and soil.
Mining sites are often contaminated with several kinds of heavy metals that come primarily from ore processing and disposal of tailings and wastewaters around. These heavy metals can be released into the environmental media, especially water, sediment and soil. In tandem with changes in the physical and chemical properties in the Lithosphere, heavy metals in tailings can be transported to, dispersed to, and accumulated in plants and animals. They can also be passed up the food chain to human beings as the final consumers.
In addition, some of the heavy metals in tailings are toxic contaminants that may cause adverse effects on the ecosystem around the metal mines. Due to their toxicity, persistence and accumulation in food chains, contamination of soils, sediments, water and biota by heavy metals is a primary concern.
Gold Mining
As gold is a precious metal found in small quantities, gold mining operations tend to cover wide areas and thus can inflict environmental damage over a geographically wide area. Gold mining tends to have huge negative implications on the environment, from digging out huge pits to disposing of leftover chemicals and tailings.
Traditionally, the cyanide leaching technique is adopted in extracting gold. This process is particularly damaging to the environment, infringes the principle of sustainable development, consumes large quantities of water and energy, contributes to global warming, emits hydrogen cyanide and creates a morass of hazardous waste. Land, water, and air pollution are all a byproduct of goldmining through the cyanide heap-leaching method.
Gold mining disrupts the landscape, the water table, the geological stability and the surrounding ecosystems because large amounts of ore have to be removed to get small amounts of gold. Due to the nature and quantities of chemicals used in processing gold, the process disturbs underground water and pollutes water systems, and simultaneously creates mountains of toxic waste.
This prolonged environmental degradation must come to an end. As demand for gold remains high, gold mining needs to take place in a way that does not pose harm to the environment.
The first step is to tackle the root cause of the issue—that means doing away with the lethal chemicals involved in processing gold.
There is a clean, non-toxic solution readily available in the market that can recover gold without toxic chemicals. Ore collected from gold mines is dissolved using a non-toxic reagent before the gold is recovered from the ore using polymer. This award-winning gold processing technology by Clean Mining, a part of Clean Earth Technologies, creates a new gold standard for gold mining companies and operators.
All it takes is a simple switch in operations. By adopting Clean Mining’s non-toxic solution, goldminers can build a future where gold mining and the environment co-exist in harmony.