In search of an equitable X-Ring
October 29, 2009 11:47 AM
The January 2009 issue of National Geographic magazine explores gold mining and states that the production of one gold wedding band creates on average 20 tons of mining waste.
I immediately thought about the X-ring that I was soon to order and wondered how much waste will be produced to make it? Due to its size I estimate at least 40 tons.
That means the roughly 1000 rings that we as StFX students purchase every year result in 40 thousand tons or 80 million pounds of mining waste. If we consider the total of about 15,000 rings purchased since 1982, 600 thousand tons or about 1 billion, two hundred million pounds of mining waste have been created.
Why so much waste?. Only one-hundred thousandth of one percent (0.00001%) of the ore that is mined is refined into gold. The pieces of gold are often so small that 200 can fit on the head of a pin. Everything else is waste.
Most gold today is mined in open-pit mines. These are giant holes dug in the earth that allow easy access to the ore, rock containing microscopic traces of gold.
The gold is extracted from the ore in a process called heap leaching. The ore is crushed and piled in heaps and then sprayed with cyanide. The gold in the ore sticks to the cyanide and after a few months the cyanide-gold solution leaks out, is collected and separated. The cyanide soaked rubble is at this point waste and takes up a lot of space somewhere in the environment.
A perfect example is the Batu Hijau mine operated in Indonesia by the Colorado based mining company, Newmont. Newmont is currently awaiting approval to clear another 79 acres of Indonesian rainforest for mine waste disposal.
Tailings, the more poisonous type of mining waste, are a collection of crushed ore and various toxic substances all suspended in water. There are two methods of dealing with tailings, storing them onsite in tailings ponds or disposing them directly into a lake, river or ocean.
Tailings ponds often fail releasing enormous amounts of hazardous waste that causes great environmental and social destruction as land, water and people are poisoned.
An example is the Omai gold mine in Guyana which is operated by the Canadian mining corporation Cambior. In 1995 its tailings dam failed and released 3 billion cubic litres of cyanide-laden tailings into the Omai River, a tributary of Guyana’s largest river, the Essequibo. The entire length of the river was deemed an “Environmental Disaster Zone.”
To avoid this sort of problem mining companies often use marine or riverine tailings disposal which simply means dumping the waste straight into the nearest body of water. The results of this are equally devastating to local populations and the environment.
I have focused only on the waste created in gold mining and its disposal. I have left to the imagination the enormous negative consequences that this waste exacts on people today and will continue to exact for thousands of year in the future .
Those who suffer most from the poisonous effects of this waste are those with little or no voice: the rural poor, especially women and children, indigenous communities and of course the rest of nature.
StFX needs to have an X-ring supplier that produces the ring from recycled gold. This way, we can take pride in our ring not just as a symbol of academic achievement but as a symbol of our personal and institutional commitment to the well being of people and the planet.
I have wanted my own X-ring ever since I was a kid admiring my uncles but I have decided that I will not buy one until I can get one that is a product of recycling and not mining. I feel that this decision is in line with the universities motto “Quaecumque Sunt Vera: Whatsoever things are true”.
Voice your concerns about gold mining and your desire to buy an X-ring made from recycled gold. Contact your students’ union and university officials and make your concerns known. With files from: National Geographic Earthworks Oxfam America
