Gold Around the World

Communities impacted by open cast gold mining from all around the world are increasingly organizing and campaigning to make civil society and decision makers aware of the devastating impact of gold mining on communites and their environment. Click here to access a presentation about Voices and Stories from mining affected communities.

Here some general Facts related to gold mining

- the production of one single golden ring generates 20 tons of mining waste;

- open pit mining destroys the landscape, generating giant craters and is 8 to 10 times more destructive than subterranean mining;

- cyanide is used for the separation of gold from the rock. A quantity of cyanide as big as a rice grain is lethal for humans and a concentration of 1 ppm is lethal for fish;

- the mining industry employs only 0.09 % percent of the total work force but uses 10 % of the energy produced at global level;

- from 1995 to 2015 half the gold produced worldwide will come from polluted areas;

- gold mining is one of the most polluting industry in the US, being responsible for 89 % of the arsenic spills, 85 % for the mercury spills and 84 % for the lead spills in 2004.

- the biggest open pit mine in the world is the Bingham Canyon mine in Utah, US; it is visible from space and measures 1.5 km in depth and is 4 km wide;

- 120 000 tons of toxic mining waste were spilled in 2000 at Baia Mare, Romania, polluting the water source for aprox. 2.5 million people and killing 1200 tons of fish.