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    Mining Essay

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    api-708123795
    Mining is important for providing resources but leaves a large environmental footprint. While mining cannot be completely sustainable, techniques like site rehabilitation, low-impact mining, and eco-friendly refining can lessen the impact. The waste from mining like tailings, wastewater, and overburden can harm wildlife and pollute water sources. Ceasing all mining is not feasible as society relies on resources from mines, but mines should make efforts to operate more sustainably such as having environmental plans.

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    Mining Essay

    Uploaded by

    api-708123795
    49 views1 page
    Mining is important for providing resources but leaves a large environmental footprint. While mining cannot be completely sustainable, techniques like site rehabilitation, low-impact mining, and eco-friendly refining can lessen the impact. The waste from mining like tailings, wastewater, and overburden can harm wildlife and pollute water sources. Ceasing all mining is not feasible as society relies on resources from mines, but mines should make efforts to operate more sustainably such as having environmental plans.

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    Mining is important for providing resources but leaves a large environmental footprint. While mining cannot be completely sustainable, techniques like site rehabilitation, low-impact mining, and eco-friendly refining can lessen the impact. The waste from mining like tailings, wastewater, and overburden can harm wildlife and pollute water sources. Ceasing all mining is not feasible as society relies on resources from mines, but mines should make efforts to operate more sustainably such as having environmental plans.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    49 views1 page

    Mining Essay

    Uploaded by

    api-708123795
    Mining is important for providing resources but leaves a large environmental footprint. While mining cannot be completely sustainable, techniques like site rehabilitation, low-impact mining, and eco-friendly refining can lessen the impact. The waste from mining like tailings, wastewater, and overburden can harm wildlife and pollute water sources. Ceasing all mining is not feasible as society relies on resources from mines, but mines should make efforts to operate more sustainably such as having environmental plans.

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    Mining Essay

    Introduction
    Mining is a vital part of human life we being very dependent on the resources we
    extract from the ground. The problem is that mining leaves a very large
    environmental footprint from the massive hole in the ground to the waste from
    refinement process. I will be covering the topics of if mining can be carried out
    sustainably, should mining cease immediately and more.
    Main Body
    The two sides of the issue are that humans heavily rely on resources mined from the
    ground but they leave a large environmental footprint. While there isn’t a way to
    make mining completely sustainable there are ways to lessen the environmental
    footprint. These include rehabilitating the mine site, using low impact mining
    methods and using more eco – friendly refining techniques. These methods are
    already being employed at some mine sites but the more sites that use these
    techniques the better for the environment. We should be concerned about the
    storage of waste from mines. Some examples of wastes produced from mines are
    tailings, mine wastewater and overburden. Tailings are the processed rock or soil left
    over after being separated from minerals. Mine wastewater is produced in different
    ways in mines and is generally acidic. Overburden is the rock and soil that needs to
    be removed in order to access the minerals. Tailings are harmful to the environment
    because according to TreeHugger they can cause death of wildlife, create toxic dust
    that can be carried by wind, and leak toxic water that mixed with the tailings into
    water sources. Mine wastewater is harmful to the environment because according to
    safewater.org waste water can mix with even more toxic waste and then leak into
    nearby streams rivers etc. Overburden is a problem because according to
    btlliners.com they can create dust storms with sometimes toxic dust, to prevent this
    overburden piles are often watered but that can cause leeching. The main waste I
    think that ceasing mining is an incredibly stupid idea as our society relies heavily on
    the resources from the mines. Materials for machinery, devices, buildings,
    generation of energy, communication and much more all rely on the materials
    generated from mines and shutting down the mines would result in all of these
    either stopping or very much slowing down in production. If scientists do not
    communicate their findings around the future of mining we are more likely to make
    bad decisions that could have been prevented had all the facts been known.
    Conclusion
    My opinion is that mines should make an effort to be more environmentally friendly
    by using techniques listed above an make a good environmental plan before starting
    the mine. I do not think that shutting down all mines is a good option as we rely so
    heavily on resources from mines.

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