Bauxite/Aluminum and the Environment
Aluminum is the third most common element in the earth's crust, with reserves guaranteed to last hundreds of years, and, in its ore, bauxite, one of the most economically significant minerals in the world. It is, perhaps, more easily recycled than any other mineral substance used by man, but mining operations still continue and are enormously valuable. Aluminum companies have been at the forefront of environmental progress and effort in the minerals industry.
Aluminum is not the cleanest metal to produce, and it is often found in ecologically significant regions. However, the undaunted aluminum industry has managed to do its part for the environment, and continually improve its own efficiency. Azom.com notes that, since bauxite is chiefly found in tropical or subtropical areas, mines are often associated with the rain forest. In truth, only about 6% of the world's current bauxite production takes place in rain forest regions, "affecting a total area of around 1.5 km2 per year" (azom.com). Bauxite mines are almost always of the open-cast type, so they have a wide impact on the land area above them. Even so, 80% of bauxite mines on forestland are eventually returned to forest, the rest "replaced by agriculture, commercial forest, or recreational area, thereby making the area more productive for the local community"; what's more, the "rain forests in particular" are "almost totally reverted back to rain forest" (azom.com). Most companies mining bauxite remove the fertile top soil separately from the rest of the overburden, so that it can reapplied to assure maximum usefulness of the reclaimed land. In addition, "over 60 per cent [of companies] have their own nursery plant facilities" and many put special care into water drainage to avoid soil erosion due to rainfall or other runoff (azom.com). In short, the reclamation procedures undertaken by aluminum companies are typical of the modern American mining industry.
The workers in aluminum run into more difficulty during the processing stage. Aluminum refining produces large amounts of PFCs, CFCs, and other poisonous or environmentally damaging gases. The process of refining itself involved diatomic chlorine gas as a reagent. Reducing the amount of chlorine gas used is a constant preoccupation in the industry, although attention is also given to reducing gaseous, liquid, and solid waste by operating "air pollution equipment that captures pollutants and recycles raw materials" (Aluminum Association). In recent years, great progress has been made by the Voluntary Aluminum Industry Partnership (VAIP) organized by the EPA.
Aluminum is the third most abundant element and most abundant metal in the Earth’s crust. Aluminum is never found in the free element state in nature. It
Mountain Top Removal is an American tragedy, the process in which mining companies remove forests and topsoil then explode the mountain apart level by level to get to coal layer. It is estimated that the explosives are equivalent of the Hiroshima bomb. A lot of the mining waste is discarded into valleys and streams; the water runoff is high in silt, ion, and sulfur compounds, which in turn pollute water downstream. Even with chemical treatments, vegetation has a hard time growing on the infertile and highly acidic soil. Mountain top removal occurs in eastern Kentucky, southern West Virginia, southwest Virginia, and east Tennessee. Virtually 1.2 million acres of land has been surface mined and more than 500 mountains have been ruined by mountaintop removal mining.
A bauxite is a mixture consisting of hydrated aluminum oxide minerals and mineral impurities which are formed by weathered aluminum bearing rocks. In 1891 bauxite was mined in Alabama from the Rock Run. However, mining came to a sudden stop because metallurgical grade bauxite became very hard to obtain. Production started back up in 1927 and has been running on a maintained basis. Due to irregular distributions of bauxite deposits, exploratory test drilling must be conducted before any mining. Alabama bauxite is used in the making of high temperature products, abrasives, and chemicals. (Tew, 6)
Aluminum is the most abundant metallic constituent in the crust of the earth; only the nonmetals oxygen and silicon are more abundant. Aluminum is never found as a free metal; commonly as aluminum silicate or as a silicate of aluminum mixed with other metals such as sodium, potassium, iron, calcium, and magnesium. These silicates are not useful ores, for it is chemically difficult, and therefore an expensive process, to extract aluminum from them. bauxite an impure h...
To begin with, Holden’s love for the innocence and purity of childhood makes him very hesitant to transition into an adult life. Generally, he finds children to be straightforward, easygoing, and simply pure in every way. This is because they always say what they mean, and never try to set a false façade for...
Taconite mining has become more popular ever since the rock has become rare. Taconite was once considered “waste rock,” but is currently really valuable. Since the Gogebic Iron Range has about three-fourths of all the taconite in the nation people from all over the country want to take over and start mining. Although taconite mining would do some good for the community, such as creating tons of jobs and boosting the economy for awhile, there are too many risks. Taconite mining has a negative effect on the environment and health.
Where the minerals that America uses came from? Americans use and waste large amounts of substance and material every day. Most people disregard and ignore the places where this material may come from. Putting little to no time into researching on the subject, makes it difficult to ever figure out and appreciate the stories and history behind our beloved substance and consumption of it. But actually putting the effort of working and looking into it, someone may be pleasantly surprised at the amount of backstory on it, and may find it rather interesting. So if someone were to say, look into the history of the Berkeley pit. They would most likely find plenty of sources explaining how it supplied copper and many minerals for the U.S. for years. Of course anyone who already knew information on the pit could tell you its amazing and introcut stories of how it came to be, and how it has been doing over the years. The pit is a “toxic attraction” in the town of Butte. Being the town’s income and source of tourism. Most people in Butte Montana, the home of the pit, could tell how amazing it is.
Even though there is a fear of getting caught, this is what artist usually consider the very core of graffiti culture. Many critics have argued that graffiti is vandalism and should be removed. However, “someone painted over your house and, of course, you’re not too happy about it. No one has the right to do that without your permission and, without even looking at it, you can pronounce it vandalism. But would you feel the same way if you saw a really breathtaking piece of graffiti art on an otherwise dull wall in the city?” (Kordic). Yes, by definition, graffiti is “an action involving deliberate destruction of or damage to public or private property”, And we can not really argue that graffiti often ends up someone’s walls, we do have to think about if it really is “destruction”, and if, perhaps, we have been asking the wrong question the whole
When Montag meets Clarisse, his neighbor, he starts to notice that there is more to life than burning books. Montag states, “Last night I thought about all the kerosene I have used in the past ten years. And I thought about books. And for the first time I realized that a man was behind each one of those books” (Bradbury 49). It begins to bother Montag that all he has done for the past years is burn books. He starts to rethink his whole life, and how he has been living it. Montag goes on to say, “It took some men a lifetime maybe to put some of his thoughts down, looking around at the world and life and then I come along in two minutes and boom! It is all over” (Bradbury 49) Before, Montag never cares about what he has been doing to the books, but when he begins to ignore the distractions and really think about life he starts to notice that he has been destroying some other mans work. Montag begins to think more of the world
This case focuses on corporate obstacles to pollution prevention. Pollution prevention can complex especially for large corporations. There are many different forms of pollution prevention including emissions control devices and incremental changes in existing technology. The author reviews the impact of emissions controlled devices, however the focus of the case study is on incremental changes in existing technology. Incremental changes include substituting one or two steps in a production process or relationship changes between production steps. One example of incremental changes that was provided by the author was eliminating chlorofluorocarbons and saving energy by replacing a refrigeration process with a heath exchanger that can exploit waste cooling from another part of the process. There are three critical decision-making stages for incremental changes; identifying a pollution prevention opportunity, finding a solution appropriate to that opportunity, and implementing that solution. The author discusses the three aspects of an organization (culture, ability to process information, and its politics) and how they impact the decision-making stages.
Gold mining has had a significant economic, social, and environmental impact in Colombian history. Thousands of years ago artisanal mining in Colombia was a practice without any chemicals involved; however, since 1850 artisanal and industrial mines use chemicals to optimize gold extraction. Because of this, mining has become incom...
Murals and graffiti are both used for self expression to help teenagers cope with their emotions. The difference between these two is that murals are seen as a beautiful piece of art that is illegal but not viewed by others as a harmful environment while graffiti is viewed as a harmful environment which commonly spreads negative messages,images,and tags being displayed on walls, buildings, and subway cars. Graffiti is very common and still continues to be a huge vandalism problem that we deal with today in our
First, what is graffiti? Graffiti, which is originally an Italian word meaning “little scribblings”, describes paintings on the walls, benches or buildings, mostly by spraying colors (Pipkin, 2013; Wendel, 2002). On the other hand, according to Mccorkle (2010), any acts or behaviors that have the intention to harm, to violate or to destruct the public privacy is considered as vandalism. Graffiti sometimes is reflected as vandalism due to the fact that it is a combination of random paintings on the walls or the façade of the buildings all around the city. Moreover, there is also a greater chance in increasing “cultural criminality” (Halsey & Young, 2002, p.166). Nevertheless, a plethora of positive feedbacks about graffiti increasing day by day suggests that graffiti should be considered as a type of street art instead of
Graffiti is a beautiful art that expresses feeling and emotions. However, people think of it differently. Is it a crime or an art? Those talented people, young or old, a teenage, a child or an adult, have a passion for making graffiti art on street walls a...
expression or application of our thoughts, desires emotions, feelings. Art helps us spread and share our thoughts with others. There is are different types of art and graffiti is one of them. Each person living in this world has their own definition of art. Some define graffiti illegal because to abuses public property. Graffiti should be legalized because it is not just an art but also could be helpful for site beautification, political expression, and a source of income.