Most people view technology as the future, a force of good that will generally improve quality of life around the world. In the business sector, Silicon Valley and tech startups exhibit massive growth potential; in manufacturing, new machinery and automation are boosting efficiency; and in the environmental realm, green technology presents the best prospects for decarbonization.
But as much as technology is hailed as the panacea of the future, most of these innovations have a dirty underside: production of these new technologies requires companies to dig up what are referred to as rare earth elements (REEs).
REEs iPhone to the six times the mineral inputs of a conventional car, and a wind plant requires seven to twenty-six times over the next 25 years as a result of electric vehicles and wind turbines. But REEs also have grim prospects: the way companies extract REEs largely damages communities and contaminates surrounding areas.
Mining Externalities
There are drilling holes into the ground using polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipes and rubber hoses to pump chemicals into the earth, which also creates a leaching pond with similar problems. Additionally, PVC pipes are sometimes left in areas that are never cleaned up.
Both methods produce mountains of 2,000 tons of toxic waste are produced.
China currently dominates the REE market, blocked REE exports to Japan as punishment for Japan’s detention of a Chinese captain. More recently, it considered claim state-owned companies are just as bad. Some argue state-owned companies are worse because they poison communities with governmental support. For example, in Zhongshan, a company claimed it was extracting resources before the government built a highway in the area, but after the highway was finished, it refused to leave. People in the area began noticing wastewater seeping into their farms, and they were forced to inhale sulfur every time they went outside. 15 protestors were arrested in 2015, and ten more protestors were arrested two years later. Some farmers from Yulin, an area with REE mining, have a similar story: they started protesting when they saw their crops and livelihoods being affected by REE extraction. Ten protesters from Yulin were detained in May 2018, and seven still remain in detention.
For all its narratives of progressive reform on REE mining, China understands the value of its monopoly and wants to maintain the status quo. It appears as though China is now moving its Kenya by agreeing to build a US$666 million data center. more stringent environmental regulations on its REE mining, though its methods are certainly not perfect.
The Path Forward
With China looking to mine in Africa and more REE developed a new method for extracting REEs using bacteria rather than toxic chemicals to separate metals from each other. Likewise, researchers at Purdue University iPhone 12 is made from 98 percent reused REEs. It is up to us, as consumers, to choose more ethically produced products so we don’t replicate the same environmental issues of the past. Though green energy has its benefits, we cannot let it lull us into complacency with toxic mining practices. There are no simple solutions to this debate, but there are ways to hold companies accountable and mitigate the needs, and effects, of toxic mining.
