Chapter 10 - Effects of mining activities on the environment & human health

Effect of mining activities on the environment & human health

From what I had read, there is a major impact during the process of mining which affects the environment greatly. There were natural resources being mined everyday and this actually pollutes the environment in a very harmful way.

There was evidence of more mining taking place as the demand of these natural resources gets more demanding. More mining is taking to fulfill the needs and those people who work in mining company gets richer each day’s and they are expanding their company. Little do they care about that plot of land which is being mined everyday and harming the environment as the earth’s natural resources gets depleted each day.

However, this is not just earth feeling the impact of the damage done to the environment but also we humans. As these metals like nickel and zinc and copper, are mined out of the land, they become a waste land and the chemical applied to the land might be harmful to us. Research have been done and found out that these chemical could lead to throat irritation and even cancer.

These cases are now more often seen by us human as he mining increases day by day due to the demand of more requirement of these natural resources. If we don’t do something fast, all the earth resources will be gone too and our health will also be affected by these mining of these materials and metals.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6103382.stm

My point of view

From what I read, I must say that this excessive mining of the earth’s resources would have be very harmful to the environment as they make use of very large amount of chemicals to treat the land for usage again.

However if they don’t do so to reclaim the land, the top soil might be removed and this could lead to desertification and the land would not be able to use again. This would greatly impact the earth as we do have limited land and we should reclaim them as much as possible. But due to the fact that the mining business owners wanted to get rich or expand their business, many do not do so and cause many precious lands to go wasted.

Even more, the chemical used might seep to reach the underground water and pollute them as an result and this will also affect people staying nearby who use these water for their washing and even bathing.

20-05-07 7.15pm