the.com/tailings
the leftover slurry of a mine's promises, stored behind a dam and a prayer.
means the crushed rock and chemical waste left after valuable minerals are extracted from ore.
from from tailing, the tail-end of processed material, the low-value leftover you literally sweep off the tail of a sluice or mill.
volume problemmost mined rock ends up as tailings, not product
storage methodoften just a dam made of the waste itself
failure ratedam failures have risen even as mining grew safer elsewhere
second lifesome tailings get reprocessed as tech metal demand rises
for instance
brumadinho dam collapse — brazil 2019, 270 people killed by tailings mud
mount polley spill — canada 2014, 24 million cubic meters released into lakes
berkeley pit — montana, a former copper mine now a toxic tailings lake
kalgoorlie super pit — australia, tailings piles visible from space