Copyright © 2012 SAGE Publications. Not for sale, reproduction, or distribution. Mineral Waste 553 ity for many local governments in the early 21st cen- Water; Public Health; Residential Urban Refuse; Toxic tury, and this has led to budget cuts in public ser- Wastes; Waste Management, Inc. vices. In some places, this means less funding for waste management, which has led to policies like Further Readings twice-per-month garbage collection. Other finan- Environmental Protection Agency. “Illegal Dumping cially strapped places do not offer convenient loca- Prevention Guidebook.” http://www.epa.gov/wastes/ tions for disposal. Perhaps the most problematic conserve/tools/payt/pdf/illegal.pdf (Accessed July for residents are locations that charge high fees for 2010). waste disposal and recycling programs. In tough “Nonprofit Agencies Shoulder Burden of Illegal economic times, there is often not enough money Dumping.” Register-Guard (Eugene) (June 3, 2003). in the household budget to make ends meet, much Sigman, Hillary. “Midnight Dumping: Public Policies less to afford these garbage costs. This is especially and Illegal Disposal of Used Oil.” RAND true for low-income residents. These segments Journal of Economics, v.29/1 (1998). of the population often resort to more economi- cally viable measures, like midnight dumping, in order to dispose of their waste. There also tend to be higher crime rates in these areas, which law Mineral Waste enforcement gives a much higher priority than ille- gal dumping. Consequently, midnight dumping Mineral waste is the solid, liquid, and airborne by- goes unchecked. products of mining and mineral concentration pro- cesses. Although mining and metallurgy are ancient Solutions arts, the Industrial Revolution launched an accel- As a way to curb illegal dumping activity, the erating global demand for minerals that has made Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has sug- waste generation and disposal modern industry’s gested implementing “pay-as-you-throw” (PAYT) most severe environmental and social challenge. programs. PAYT programs, which are also known Mineral solid waste production alone is stagger- as variable-rate pricing or unit pricing, establish ingly vast. a waste disposal charge that varies based on the Although no accurate estimate of global waste amount of waste a given household throws away. volumes exists, estimates range from millions to This approach departs from traditional methods billions of tons annually (depending on whether of either taxing residents or charging them a fixed coal wastes are included), and the mining industry fee for waste disposal services. Instead, people are accounts for the largest proportion of total industrial charged in a manner similar to other utilities based waste production. Mine spoils are often regarded on how much or how little waste they generate. as a blight on the landscape as well as a serious The EPA initially devised PAYT as a way to encour- environmental and public health threat. Neverthe- age resource conservation, and it has observed that less, mining by-products and landscapes may shift areas with these programs experience a decrease in between the categories of “waste” and “value” illegal dumping. Whether programs like PAYT will due to changes in technology, economics, and cul- eliminate illegal dumping remains to be seen, but tural attitudes. Paradoxically massive in scope, yet given consumption patterns, these activities will largely hidden from everyday life, mineral waste is are likely to continue in the 21st century. significant not only for its environmental impacts but also as a material index of contemporary rates Jerry Ratcliffe of commodity production and consumption. Temple University Mining Processes and Wastes See Also: Crime and Garbage; Hazardous Materials Mining entails the excavation and separation of Transportation Act; Industrial Waste; Landfills, valuable minerals from their geological matrix. In Modern; Open Dump; Pollution, Land; Pollution, metal mining (as opposed to quarrying), since target Copyright © 2012 SAGE Publications. Not for sale, reproduction, or distribution. 554 Mineral Waste minerals are typically only a fraction of the ore (or Waste Hazards and Pollution mineral-bearing rock), ore processing results in con- Mill waters and mine drainage are the principal liq- siderable volumes of waste, known as tailings. A typi- uid residuals. Because water is usually used to pro- cal, modern, base-metal operation yields greater than cess ore and transport mill tailings for disposal, liq- 98 percent waste from the excavated material. These uid and solid wastes are often considered together residuals are generally disposed of to the lithosphere in waste-disposal planning. Environmental pollut- at waste-rock dumps and tailings disposal areas ants in both solid and liquid wastes may include (although tailings are sometimes disposed of directly heavy metals and metal salts, process reagents used to waterways or backfilled into old mine shafts). Sur- to recover minerals (such as cyanide or mercury), face materials such as soil and vegetation, removed and other contaminants in the ore (such as arse- as “overburden,” are not typically considered waste, nic and selenium). Acid mine drainage (AMD) is although they contribute to mining’s environmen- a common and widespread water pollution prob- tal impact. Slag, the solid by-product of smelting, lem, whereby sulfuric acid is released into the envi- was historically left in massive piles beside smelters ronment through the oxidation of sulfur-bearing or dumped in nearby watercourses. Although once rocks exposed during the mining process. Tailings used as an all-purpose building and grading material, impoundments may contribute to pollution through smelter slag may also contain contaminants. the overflow of contaminated water to surrounding waterways. In some instances, the catastrophic fail- ure of tailings dams has choked streams and coated their banks with a flood of finely ground material. At their worst, tailings dam collapses have caused extensive landscape and property damage as well as human fatalities. Many of these same pollutants are features of airborne wastes associated with mining and min- eral refining. Airborne particulate matter blown from slag heaps and tailings ponds may bear harm- ful substances. Copper, nickel, lead, and zinc smelt- ers were notorious for producing noxious smoke- stack emissions that not only affected the health of local populations but also transported pollut- ants over long distances, where they denuded large areas of vegetation and damaged downwind crops and livestock. Mining has long been associated with environmen- tal degradation. In his classic 1555 text, De Re Metal- lica, German doctor Georgius Agricola attempted to refute the accusations of environmental devastation leveled by mining’s detractors by insisting the waste and damage associated with mineral extraction was temporary. More recently, in the 1934 text Technics and Civilization, Lewis Mumford linked mining with the historical exploitation of both nature and human- ity. For Mumford, the pursuit of minerals represented an abandonment of the organic environment for the Copper, nickel, lead, and zinc smelters were notorious for producing noxious smokestack emissions. The pollution could inorganic, subterranean realm; in turn, the wastes travel long distances, threatening public health and damaging generated by mining and metallurgy destroyed the downwind crops and other vegetation. natural world at the surface. Copyright © 2012 SAGE Publications. Not for sale, reproduction, or distribution. Mineral Waste 555 The problems of waste disposal and environmen- rock mining proceeded from underground opera- tal degradation have made the mining industry a tions to the use of open-pit methods in order to target of environmental critics and government process extensive deposits of low-grade ore. These regulation. For its part, the industry often resisted methods were pioneered to meet the 20th century’s environmental regulations and, in many mining dis- sharply rising mineral demand, fueled by acceler- tricts around the world, developed a reputation of ating industrial growth, mass consumption, and disregard for local environmental and public health military needs. Historian Tim LeCain describes impacts. For instance, at the Ok Tedi Mine in Papua the resulting growth in waste production and New Guinea, uncontrolled tailings disposal into the large-scale landscape devastation as environmental Ok Tedi River destroyed the local ecosystem and the “mass destruction.” livelihood of the region’s indigenous inhabitants, The status of mineral wastes as simply pollutants prompting local and international protests and sub- or unwanted residuals is, however, subject to change sequent court cases. In situations where ore exhaus- due to technological developments in ore recovery, tion or financial conditions have led to mine closure the emergence of new mineral uses and demands, and abandonment, accumulated waste materials or changing mineral market conditions. In such and unsecured mine workings may continue to pose cases, former waste may gain value, and the history environmental hazards; the estimated millions of of mining contains many examples of the rework- abandoned or derelict mine sites around the world ing of old, apparently exhausted ore bodies or the constitute a major environmental hazard. How- reprocessing of waste deposits to extract valuable ever, large mines are by no means the only