Stockpiling of Tailings Does Harm to the Social Development

In recent years, the tailing stockpiling in the mining industry has been a serious issue and it has caused a large number of problems that are harmful to the social development. Let’s see what damage the stockpiling tailings will cause to the environment.

The increasing tailings at high speed from the mining industry will occupy a large area of lands which include a certain number of agricultural land and forestry land.

To pile up a lot of tailings will result in the waste of mineral resources. In China, most minerals are in the low grade and the scattering particle size of the mineral is quite small. In the past, the domestic mining machines especially the ore beneficiation equipment had lower recovery rate than the foreign ones. So, the resource wasting problem appears often.

The piling tailings are also a threat to the ecological environment. For example, the metal minerals with fine granule are easy to be raised after they are dried, so once there is a strong wind blowing, it’s quite possible for these metal powders to form a sand storm, thus causing air pollution. Moreover, mineral tailings consisting of heavy metal, chloride, cyanide and sulfide will also do harm to the earth and the surroundings and affect the normal growth of the crops, animals and even human beings.

The storage bin for the piling tailings is a dangerous place with a potential risk. After the minerals are washed in the ore beneficiation process, the light and fine granules are easy to flow and collapse which will lead to landslide and debris flow disasters.