Tailings squander

Even the utmost grade deposits have less than 1% uranium. So vast amounts of ore have to be processed to obtain useful quantities of the uranium. The leftover ‘waste’ rock is known tailings. In the course of processing it is crushed to a well powder, which is nearly as radioactive as the uranium itself. It is perilous for more than 250,000 years, which might as well be eternally. These tailings need to be secluded from the environment to avoid a cancer epidemic, and there are previously more than 50 million tonnes of uranium tailings on Australian soil.

Radon Gas

As uranium emanates radiation; it transforms itself into a novel element, which in turn emanates radiation and decays, and so on through 14 steps until it ultimately – after hundreds of thousands of years – becomes a stable type of non-radioactive lead. One of the elements along the way is radon, a radioactive gas which can travel for hundreds of kilometres prior to decaying. Mine workers and others who breathe in this gas risk mounting lung cancer and other kinds of lung disease

Environmental Pollution

Uranium mining pollutes the air, water and earth with radioactive chemicals and heavy metals which can never be well cleaned up. In addition to the radiation hazard, mining is also related with poisonous process chemicals, heavy metals and the use of vast quantities of water. In the short term, uranium mine sites ruin the ecology of the local region; in the long term, they pose a risk to a much wider area.

Health risks

The health risks of uranium mining are by now fairly well known, although still belligerently disputed by the mining industry. Collectively, uranium miners suffer the maximum radiation doses of all workers in the nuclear fuel chain. The major problems are inhalation of dust and radon gas, which leave alpha radiation emitters lodged in the body where they can do the majority harm. As the pollution from the mines spread away from the minesite, local people are also out in the open to contamination. While uranium mining is most usually allied with cancer, low level radiation is also mixed up in birth fault, high infant mortality and chronic lung, eye, skin and reproductive illnesses.

Nuclear Waste

There is a vast amount of high level nuclear waste still being spewed out by reactors round the world and there is nowhere safe to put it. Pangea Resources actually has a plan to bring many of this waste into Australia. Nuclear power stations create this waste as fraction of normal operations; but there are also risks of reactor accidents; the explosion at Chernobyl in 1986 killed a lot of people, spread nuclear pollution right around the planet and forced the enduring evacuation of the surrounding area.

Nuclear Weapons

While the mining companies do not like to confess it, nuclear power is a military technology designed to make plutonium for nuclear weapons. Thousands of these weapons are still on hairtrigger alert ten further than ten years after the Cold War, and they are spreading gradually to new countries.

Bryan Peter is a Copywriter of Mining Industry We provide latest updates in the mining industry, the rich information in this site gives valuable inputs with regards to types of metals, minerals & precious stones and their properties. For more information visit: Uranium Mining contact him atbrayan.peter@gmail.com   Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Brayan_Peter

If there is something that seriously affects everyone is, Water pollution. Over 40% of the rivers and 46% of the lakes in America are too polluted to fish in, swim in, or maintain marine life. There are many causes of water pollution. Water pollution come from two different types of sources.

1) Pollutants being emitted directly into a water body results in a “point source”, such as a pipe from an industrial facility leaking toxics directly into the water.

2) Pollutants being indirectly transported to the water such as run off from fertilizers flowing in to a larger body of water by rain results in a type of polution called “nonpoint source”.

Pesticides are one of the most common causes of water pollution. Pesticides from farms and individual home owners run off into streams and rivers. Then on it gets absorbed into the ground water polluting the water that people drink and causing trouble with the fish in the rivers where the pesticides run off.

One more cause of water pollution are fertilizers and nutrient pollution. Some of the pollutants that are most prevalent in the manure, sewage and chemical fertilizers are Nitrates and phosphates. These pollutants run into the streams and rivers causing excessive growth in aquatic plants and algae leading to clogged waterways and dead zones.

Another cause of water pollution happens when oil, gasoline and additives gets spilled due to a leak in a major oil tanker. This usually gets a lot of coverage and press due to it’s effects on marine animals, local fisherman and coastal businesses. Oils can also seep into the waterways through the groundwater as a result of a leak or small spill.

Mining as a result of an industry, is an other one of the causes of water pollution. Mining exposes heavy metals and sulfur compounds that get leached and absorbed into the ground water and make their way into the nearby water sources. Mines can continue to drain toxic elements into the water supply long after the mining has come to a close.

A few additional causes of water pollution are:

• Chemical and industrial processes that produce waste that is injected into deep groundwater sources

• Sediment build up as a result of clear cutting

• Pharmaceuticals such as growth hormones used in farming

• Personal care products and household cleaning products such as bleach, fabric softener, lotion, perfume and hair dye

• Air pollution due to power plants and emissions from vehicles

• Sewage

• Heat from power plants that causes water pollution by killing fish and marine organisms.

• Carbon Dioxide which causes acidification in oceans

There are many other causes of water pollution in addition to these that will need to be dealt with and addressed in order to reduce the strain on the water supply.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Peter_Bankss

By Kathryn Lambert

Until July, 2007, I lived in Michigan. Green living wasn’t really part of my life. Like all of my friends, I complained about my electric bill (especially in the winter!), I worried about the rising costs of things like food and gas, and I made an effort at eco friendly activities like recycling. And then I moved to Hawaii! Instead of paying 8 cents kWh for electricity, I started paying nearly $0.40. Gas cost nearly $5.00 a gallon as opposed to the nearly $3.00 I had grudgingly grown accustomed to paying. My already slim budget was hit even harder by the price of food – things like milk cost nearly $6.00 a gallon and orange juice was nearly $10.00!It was tempting to turn around and head straight back to the mainland, but after what I’d spent to get here in the first place, that certainly wasn’t an option – at least not right away. I had to find a way to make it here, and I needed to do it fast.

It wasn’t only the cost of living that opened my eyes to the need for green living though. When I stopped to think about it, I realized that if there was a crisis of global proportions, it would be pretty simple for a little island like Hawaii to be forgotten. As a chain of islands, we depend on the mainland United States for almost everything from gas to food. I’m not one to worry about “what-ifs,” but it was certainly worth thinking about. Why was it that this little island needed to be so dependent on other for its very survival?

I was also saddened by the amount of waste that I saw around the island. Research taught me that Hawaii produces more waste per person than any other state in the nation. How is this possible? We have the least amount of space to put it…unless throwing it into the ocean is an alternative – it’s not, by the way.

It was time to make a decision to change the way that I was used to living. There was no denying any longer that there was an absolute need for green living and I had to be the one to make the change for my family. What a change it’s been. Simple common sense has given me a lot of great eco friendly ideas and the rest have come from research and talking to others has helped me with the rest. While I certainly have a long way to go, I’m proud of the changes that we’ve made. I would have never pictured myself as a gardener, for example, but my family now has a vegetable garden that would make my grandfather, an old farmer, jealous. We’re also growing fruit trees and it’s a great feeling to know that if something did happen that stopped food from coming to our little island, we’d at least have enough to eat.

We’ve learned the importance of recycling, choosing eco friendly products, combining trips, reducing our energy usage, and much more. Not only has the switch to green living allowed us to stay in Hawaii without going completely broke, it’s given us a better outlook on the way that I should have been living for a long time.

Whether you live on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, or you live in the middle of the United States – making the choice to live a more eco friendly lifestyle is a good decision. Take the time to think about small changes that you can make in your lifestyle and purchasing habits. If we all made small changes, the resulting impact would be HUGE!

http://www.green-living-made-easy.com http://www.mylilgreendress.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kathryn_Lambert