Industrial Minerals what it is all about? Is it really important to us? When I read the topic, my curiosities begin to start & ask questions in my mind. Industrial Minerals are geological materials which are mined for their commercial value, which are not fuel and are not sources of metals. They are used in their natural state or after beneficiation either as raw materials or as additives in a wide range of applications. It has a lot of role in our everyday lives. But some of us are against on it.
If there is no industrial mineral, there is no civilization today, why would this be happened, because every industrial mineral exist in our daily lives. One of its examples is the sugar it is composed of Calcium Carbonate or Limestone to refining it. Another example of it is the food that we eat every day. Who of you does not have a cellphone? Do you know that an average cellphone contains about 24 mgs of gold, 250 mgs of silver, 3,800 mgs of cobalt, and 9 mgs of palladium?
As with cellphones, mining touches most aspects of our daily life – when you build your home, use your laptops, take your car to work, or even protest against mining. Clearly, we cannot live without mining. Medicine has a very important role in our lives it cure our sicknesses, but did you know that medicine are made up in minerals. Same as the liquids we drink every day the automobile is composed of an abundance of industrial minerals. Constructing building needs concrete, concrete pavement is composed of cement & aggregate.
All of the various kinds of paper are filled with and use limestone, sodium sulfate, lime and soda ash in the processing. It’s sad to know that only few people realize the important role that industrial minerals play in our everyday lives. Mining is not harmful to our natural resources if we just only know how to maintain, control & take care of it. Minerals are like other natural resources it is limited and it can be exhaust. It exists in our everyday living & we can’t live without it that’s the reality. What are the alternatives to the use of mineral land?
Tourism is certainly an option to consider. However, most mining sites are not ideal for tourism. For example is the mines in Padcal and Surigao are hardly suitable for tourism simply because they don’t have the features of an attractive tourist site. And even if tourism were possible, we must ask: Are the expected returns from tourism comparable to the benefits which mining can provide? Another suggested land use is agriculture. I’m a believer in the potential and need for agriculture in this country. I consider the imperative of feeding ourselves as an urgent national priority.
But again, most mines are situated in areas that are inhospitable to agriculture. The land is often too steep, too arid or too mineralized for agriculture to prosper. Can you live without your cell phones, internet, laptops or even your tablets? Can you walk Manila to Baguio or can you swim in the sea just to cross with it? Can you walk outside without your gorgeous and expensive bags & clothes? If your answer is NO then you are willing to have industrial minerals in the world. As we all know every advantage there comes disadvantages and vise versa of it.
But having a civilized country damaged our natural resources because it starts the noise pollution, pollution and other resources concerns which cause to the global warming. I am a pro to mining but it doesn’t mean that I am insensitive to our natural resources. I am very familiar to the situation of our natural resources today, mining is very helpful to us but we don’t need to abuse it. Mining also helped our country to be civilizes and improve our economy. Our country has enough laws to address concerns in most areas of our lives. The problem has always been enforcement and implementation of such laws.
But our industry is not perfect, and could benefit from improvements. Mining is not the enemy. Poverty is. The lack of means, the lack of the most basic necessities, the lack of opportunities, the lack of choices – for far too long, in far too many places – these pernicious inadequacies have plagued our people. Yet the supreme irony is that, in the midst of all this poverty, lie some of the world’s richest natural resources, a gift of providence for our people to make use of – not abuse. It really is as simple as this – where poverty persists, small scale mining continues.
