Currently, there is great demand for certain minerals known as "Rare Earths". While the elements are not actually that rare, and most are actually metals, the majority of them that we use are currently mined in China. Why are these important? without them, you would not have the current variety of mobile phones (including i-phones), flat-screen TV's and most of the electronic devices that we have come to rely on.
Similar to the Chocolate Chip Cookie Lab we worked on last week, the most efficient way of getting these minerals is through strip mining and dangerous factory work that leaves the soil, air and water polluted with acids, toxic metals and even radioactive waste (the radioactive element Thorium is often found with the iron ore that also holds the rare earth minerals.
According to a recent New York Times article, "The refineries and the iron ore processing mill pump their waste into an artificial lake here. The reservoir, four square miles and surrounded by an earthen embankment four stories high, holds a dark gray, slightly radioactive sludge laced with toxic chemical compounds.
The deadly lake is not far from the Yellow River watershed that supplies drinking water to much of northern China. The reservoir covers an area 100 times the size of the alumina factory waste pond that collapsed this month in Hungary, inundating villages there and killing at least nine people."
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