From the many statistics provided in the paper, the absurdity of our huge failure becomes obvious.
This paper shows how we, as a society, can mine in all the wrong places. In the European Union alone, there are more than 500 million shelved mobile phones, worth 1.3 billion euros worth of recyclable gold, silver, platinum, palladium and copper.
The paper pointed out that one of the reasons for the failure of the recycling policy is that no one has seriously considered the need to leave minerals underground and under the sea.
Although the extraction of metals such as copper or gold from e-waste is actually 13 times cheaper than extraction from traditional mines.
extract
In terms of concentration, the gold content of mobile phones is 100 times that of high-grade deposits, and the tungsten content is 10 times that of high-grade deposits.
However, nine out of ten discarded mobile phones (with an average life span of just over two years) are being incinerated or buried in landfills, and existing technologies can recycle more than 80% of the total value of their metals.
Current market Put relatively cheap metals into production at huge environmental and social costs. Obviously, it cannot be used as a motivation to prevent or reverse the massive waste of metals in the north of the world.
Therefore, only the decisive political will to curb mining can promote the true realization of the cycle.
According to experts from the International Resources Group, the current gold in vaults and national reserves is sufficient to meet global demand without having to mine another ounce from the ground.
Pollution
More than 90% of gold is mined exclusively for luxury goods and financial markets, and continuous and unnecessary gold mining is generating 20% of the world’s hazardous mine waste tailings.
Many countries and regions have had enough of this situation and have begun to move away from the mining industry.
The 1998 Antarctic Treaty Environmental Protection Protocol strictly prohibits “any activity related to mineral resources”, demonstrating how countries agree to end environmental damage caused by mining.
Costa Rica banned open-pit mining in 2010, while El Salvador banned all metal mining in 2017. This year, Australia’s Northern Territory issued a permanent ban on deep-sea mining.
The mining industry is one of the most polluting industries in the world, and it is also the main factor leading to the collapse of the climate.
policy maker
The production of seven metals — iron, aluminum, copper, zinc, lead, nickel, and manganese — account for 7% of total greenhouse gas emissions, and is the main cause of human rights violations, political instability, and forced displacement in the global South.
The good news is that we can move from a linear, one-off economy that currently focuses on excessive consumption and GDP growth to a circular economy that focuses on self-sufficiency, well-being, and fair and equitable distribution.
As the sociologist Elise Boulding showed in the 1980s, we cannot strive to achieve what we cannot even see in our imagination.
This is why the paper’s invitation to imagine a world without mining is crucial, so in the future there will be no—or at least less—a positive image of mining that can help citizens, movements, and policymakers guide their actions now.
This author
Joám Evans Pim is a farmer from Frojám in Galissa. He is also an activist on political, environmental, cultural and human rights issues, with a particular focus on reviving direct parliamentary democracy in rural areas, defending and restoring public lands, and tackling destructive mining and other environmental degradation projects. Joám is a member of the advisory board of the Transnational Institute of Social Ecology. He also lectures on civil disobedience and non-violent actions seasonally in the Master’s course in Peace, Mediation and Conflict Studies at the University of Ebo Academy in Finland.
