What are the Environmental Effects of Gold Mining

Gold mining is dirty business. It destroys the homes of native people and creates mind-boggling amounts of waste. Gold is sometimes mined by children even though mining gold is very dangerous and toxic work.

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3,150 tons of gold mined a year

Every year the world produces an amount of gold that would fit into a cube of about 5 meters on each side - about 3150 metric tons.

Gold is ruthless business

Half of the gold produced is currently mined in areas that traditionally are home to native people. The land rights of these people are often not recognized and many are forced to leave.

Child gold miners

Gold mining is extremely dangerous work for children. Yet still today, tens of thousands are found in the small-scale gold mines of Africa, Asia and South America.

99.9999 % waste Gold mining produces devastating amounts of waste! On average, only 0.00001% of the ore that is mined is refined into gold. The remaining 99.9999% is waste - much of it is highly toxic. Low-grade gold ore is often mixed with sodium cyanide to dissolve the gold. Cyanide is a highly poisonous chemical that destroys ecosystems if not contained. Cyanide spills are common in gold mining. In addition to cyanide, pollution from gold mining includes heavy elements such as cadmium, lead, arsenic, selenium and mercury.

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6,578,664,596

Tonnes of toxic waste produced from gold mining

Globally, this year

What is gold used for?

Gold is mainly used for jewelry and as an investment object:

50% jewelry
40% investments
10% industry

The price of gold

The value of 3150 tons of gold changes all the time. On 30 August 2019 it was worth almost 155 billion dollars - 154,506,715,492 USD to be precise. About the GDP of Kazakhstan.