The development of mining technology plays an important role in the mining industry as well as in the environment. The mining industry plays a crucial role in our economy. The mining industry was very conservative in initiating and adopting new technologies in the past due to high capital requirements, environmental limitations and small profit margins. However, the mining industry has made significant progress in productivity, mining technologies used, environmental control, and worker health and safety. The mining industry has also introduced improved clean technology to carry out best mining processes and practices. Such practices have been applied in developing countries which achieved best results. When mining technologies become more widely available, there will be only technology gap between mining industries and countries.

The mining industries continue to play their essential role in sustainable technological development to improve their performance, reduce environmental pollution to all media and enhance the quality of life within their operational work area. The mining industry aims at adopting and implementing innovative technologies through the usage of both mining and environmental technologies to create a better environment quality in mining industry areas, reduce negative impact to human health and environment, reduce water and air pollution, and land degradation.

Most of the recent developments made in mining technologies prove to be cost-effective and environment-friendly technologies. For example, Solvent-extraction/electro-winning (SXEW) is a hydrometallurgical process that differs from the traditional method of producing copper by milling, smelting, and refining. The development of the SXEW process helps in the low-cost production of copper from waste and raw ore dumps of copper minerals excavated from copper mines. SXEW helps United States and few other copper-producing countries very much. EESTECH provides environmentally sustainable technologies that have direct application in the world’s coal mining and energy industries. EESTECH’s Hybrid Coalmine Gas Technology (HCGT) is a recognized Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) that uses waste coal and ventilated coalmine methane as a fuel source to produce cost effective clean coal energy. Clean coal technology offer solutions in the fight against global warming.
The development of new mining technologies helps to reduce production costs, enhance the quality of mined metals and minerals , enhance the quality of commodities using mined minerals, reduce adverse environmental effects, health and safety impacts. Thus the mining technological developments benefits consumers and producers, as well as nation’s economy, national defense, health and social well being.

The most developed and developing countries have already imposed environmental standards for emission, effluent, groundwater contamination, and hazard and toxic management guidelines. But because of weak law enforcement, lack of monitoring capability and skilled human resources, the mining industry do not obey. Hence, the environment standards must be harmonized within the developing countries in order to improve the environmental performance and management of mining industries.

Political and social institutions could exert enormous influence over the mining industry development. Political Institutions including central government, local government and public decision makers must creating international harmonization of environmental standards for better positioning for global competitiveness in mining product. Doing so will improve the corporate image of the mining industries as well as benefit the global consumers.

Workshops and training programs on pollution control and measurement techniques of mining activities, and development of network among mining partnership organizations should be carried out through internship and technical assistance in mining industries.

Mining is destructive to the environment as trees and vegetation are cleared and burned for mining. Natural minerals and metals are stripped from the soil. In fact mining is one of the causes for deforestation. When environment is drastically affected, naturally the people will be affected.

The mining pits dug during land dredging mining remain as stagnant water pools serving as breeding ground for mosquitoes and other water-born insects.People living near such water pool areas have high possibility of getting water-born diseases such as malaria. The gravel, mud, and rocks displaced during river dredging mining disrupt the natural flow of the river. As a result, fish and other aquatic living organisms often die and fishermen find it very difficult to navigate in the obstructed rivers. Sand and gravel mining may sometimes pave way for contaminating the groundwater.

Chemicals used during mining process causes pollution to the environment, animals, and people.The chemicals such as cyanide, mercury, or methyl mercury used to amalgamate the metals and minerals extracted by mining are discharged into rivers, streams, bays, and oceans, thus contaminating the water bodies and the aquatic organisms such as fish living within the water bodies. People who consume such contaminated aquatic organisms are prone to serious health hazards. The contaminated water cannot be used for bathing, drinking, cooking, or washing clothes, thus creating water scarcity problem for people living nearby.

The toxic waste from mine tailings flow into either an abandoned mining pit or adjacent forest in the case of land dredging and pollute the river in the case of river dredging. The people who are exposed to the toxic waste from the tailings suffer health problems. They may suffer from skin rashes, headaches, vomiting, diarrhea, etc. Some mining involves the unintentional dispersal of heavy metals, such as lead, into the atmosphere. This can have serious health effects such as mental retardation in children. Asbestos dispersed into the environment during asbestos mining is life threatening for local residents and workers.

People living near mining areas or mining villages are very much disturbed and affected by the impact of mining. Theft, drugs/alcohol, prostitution, rape, cultural degradation and sexual abuse are unfortunately some of the worst problems of people living in mining areas. The poor people who face the health problems of mining cannot afford for a medical treatment, or the people who live in a remote village where a doctor is not accessible remain untreated for their illness.

The mining operators and their families may also face problems. The miners also have life risks when they are working in the mine. The family of small scale miners may suffer from financial and protection problems as the miners leave their family in search of work.

The effect of each proposed mining process on the environmental should be analyzed before granting permission to proceed mining. For example, the mining and use of asbestos are banned in most parts of the world life as asbestos dispersed into the environment is life threatening for people for several years.

Thus deforestation, mineral/metal depletion and chemical pollution due to mining can have unfavorable impact on the environment, aquatic habitats, people, animals, and of course the mining operators . Mining operators must be aware of the impacts of their mining operations, adopt self safety measures and ensure minimum risk to the environment and people.

As most of us are aware, mining is one of the most environment unfriendly industries. Mining can seriously affect land, air and even water systems. The greatest challenge confronting the mining industry today is to find ways of extracting and processing mineral and metal with minimum damage to our ecosystem. The adverse environmental impacts of mining operation starts with mineral exploration, continues throughout the extraction and subsequent processing and at times persist even after the entire operations are over. Mining can cause serious land degradation, large scale denudation of forest cover, weakening of biodiversity, pollution of air, water and soil. The fall out can extend well beyond the mining area and lead to many social, economic and political disturbances. To mitigate the adverse impacts of mining and restore the mining affected areas, it is imperative to conduct proper research and find ways and means to protect the environment.

We had hitherto paid scant attention to the protection of the environment. Therefore the question of environmental protection has today become critically important. The mining industry is seriously attempting to develop effective technologies and new processing methods to ensure that the modern mining activities of exploration, planning, operation, and restoration are conducted in an environmentally responsible and sustainable manner. It is earnestly pursuing research activities oriented toward the safe and responsible use of our mineral resources.

If we take a look at the mining companies, there are several ways in which they can take steps to safeguard the environment. Mining companies would have to re-examine their own mining operations. Their impact on mining the land, the fuel that they use in running the mining equipment, and how they will restore the land once they have exhausted the mines resources.

Despite our passion for electronic goods, let us not forget that the manufacture, use, and disposal of electronic devices can incalculably harm the environment. The manufacture of electronics involves mining- often strip mining- which can adversely affect the environment as also a number of caustic chemicals that are used to make circuit boards and other electronic components. Added to this, the batteries that supply back-up power that most of our electronic gadgets run on are decidedly poisonous. Let us also not forget that the disposal of electronics can create health hazards because of all of the heavy metals that they contain. The one solution to overcome environmental impacts of electronics is recycling of old electronics to the extent possible. Recycling almost eliminates the need for mining that otherwise has to be done to acquire the raw materials needed to manufacture new electronics. Recycling requires less energy than processing the materials that go into electronics from their raw form.

Yet another environmental hazard, more serious than electronics, is coal mining. Coal companies keep opening up a mountain like removing the top off an egg. Coal dust settles like pollen over the surrounding areas. Coal mining creates several billion gallons of coal slurry, which contains extremely high levels of mercury, cadmium, and nickel. Although lauded by mining companies that this is a safer, more efficient way to produce coal, this type of strip mining has evoked strong protests from environmentalists and people who reside near coal mining areas. Coal mining work can be extremely dangerous, as the numerous occupational hazards can cause critical injuries or even death. If you have been injured in a coal mining accident, you have legal rights to claim for damages.

There are other environmental concerns arising out of metal mining operations such as physical disturbances to the landscape, waste rock disposal, development of metal-bearing and acidic soils and waters and not the least public safety.