Mining is also taking its toll on the local landscape. To increase gold production, several environmentally damaging chemical products, including cyanide, acids, detergents, and explosives, are used by most miners, especially small-scale ones. Their use contaminates soil and destroys ground cover.
Amalgamation, a technique for extracting gold from ore using mercury, is particularly damaging. In the distillation phase, generally carried out in the open air at placer mining sites, a significant portion of the chemical enters the environment as a polluting vapour.
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