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Sustainable Minerals Industry
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Definition To make a mineral useful for humans, the mineral deposit must be located, extracted, and beneficiated, processed or refined by concentrating it and removing impurities. The purified mineral can then be used to make a product. Mining and smelting can damage land, and disposal can pollute the air, soil, and water. Industrial mining is infamous for its impacts on human safety and health. The environmental costs of extraction, processing, and disposal of wastes have not been captured in the actual price of the final products, especially in developing nations. The inability to capture "externalities" in mineral costs has saddled taxpayers in developed nations with the cost of reconstruction and restoration of mined mountains and polluted waters. "Sustainable" mineral flows seek ways to minimize environmental impacts, maximize the health and safety of workers and citizens of nearby watersheds, extend the useful lifespan of processed minerals by reuse, and rehabilitate the derelict lands left by mining operations. Sustainable industries also look for materials substitution and new product designs to minimize the need for nonrenewable minerals (ceramics, plastics). Future trends include: at the extraction stage, microorganisms "biomine" low-grade ores to increase concentrations of metals like gold; at the refining stage, technological advancements can extract more minerals per ton of country rock; at the goods and factory step, scraps can be returned to the smelter for reuse; at the finished product and consumer step, recycling can return used goods to become secondary materials (scrap); and at the disposal level, certain tailings and landfills can be "mined" for recycled products. |
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FEATURED ORGANIZATIONS
Alaskans for Responsible Mining ARM a voluntary association of non-governmental organizations working together to raise public awareness of the impacts of the mining industry. Mines, Minerals and People MMP . The destruction of the preexisting habitat for the mining industry undermines the possibility of any other use of the other resources of the area. RELATED PORTALS
Mining Minerals Law and Policy Mining and Refining Ores Sustainable Minerals Industry
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Mineral flow or value chain, reserves, proved reserves, industrial ecosystems, mineral conservation, recycling, reuse, solid waste management, sanitary landfills, durable goods, repairable goods, beverage deposits, dematerialization, mineral substitutes, biomining, reserves, proved reserves, acid mine drainage, tailings, watershed conversion, toxic minerals, derelict lands |
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