The Negative Effects of Gold Mining

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The Negative Effects of Gold Mining Gold is a material that always had a huge demand in market. Being remarkably rare makes it very valuable but also makes the destruction of much bigger quantities of land according to the amount of product acquired necessary. Unfortunately technology has not reached the point to be able to eliminate the dangers of mining procedures. Whether the search for gold is beneficial or detrimental to mankind is arguable. Gold mining is one of the human activities with the most devastating effects on the environment. The primary effects of gold mining are water pollution, destruction of land and air pollution. One of the most important negative effects gold mining can be associated with is water pollution. The cheapest way to extract gold is a method called cyanide heap leaching, which leaves behind big amounts of wasted rock and leaking toxic materials. These toxic materials eventually make their way to the nearest water source. Nicholas states that a cyanide spill from a gold mine in Baia Mare in 2000, killed tons of fish in the rivers of Danube and Tisza. Finding out that birds and other wildlife died around the rivers nearby towns got obligated to shut down their water intake systems (2010). The damage caused by mercury and cyanide leakage is not limited by the imminent death of nearby creatures but has also long term effects. As stated in “Poisoned Waters”, mercury and heavy metals, secondary products of gold mining, eventually enter the food chain and make people and animals sick for centuries to come (n.d). The second major consequence of gold mining is the devastation caused on land. In order to get little amounts of gold, hectares of land have to be destroyed disregarding the fact that it sometimes is on officially protected natural areas. This means that gold mining promotes deforestation in disastrous levels. For example

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