Where Mining meets Building Materials

Most people generally understand that mining is bad for our planet.  In today's blog we want to explain why exactly that is and how mining impacts today's building materials.  According to environmental experts mining is one of the most detrimental things that we do to our planet.  There are several negative effects and it all first starts with the complete deforestation of the land that is to be mined.  Deforestation results in a massive loss of oxygen producing vegetation, the elimination of essential habitats for wildlife, and is a severe disturbance to the area’s ecosystem.  Once the mining site has been cleared than the real nasty begins.  Explosives, cyanide, and other disturbing chemicals are used to open the land in order to extract the nonrenewable resource sought.   The chemicals and explosives used can affect local residents and of course the miners working the site.   Once the resource is removed a variety of poisonous chemicals, including mercury, arsenic, cyanide, methyl mercury, and sulfuric acid will be dangerously exposed.  All of which will eventually leak into local ground water supplies or dissipate into the air causing lovely things like acid rain.  Many mining sites are completely abandoned once the dollar signs are gone leaving the land to suffer for years to come.

There are several building materials now a days that are derived through mining.   Mining is needed to acquire aggregates used in concrete and concrete block as well as components of drywall and other gypsum products.  Granite, quartz, basically any stone kitchen or bathroom countertop or flooring was likely the result of mining. Even today's popular backyard designs typically include landscape pieces that had been previously mined. All in all, it's sad to say a good portion of today's building materials are derived through some type of mining.  But the good news is that we have eco-friendly alternatives for most of these building materials.   We also have peace of mind knowing that there are some really smart people developing new eco-friendly building materials that we'll be blogging about soon!