The Price of Gold

The price of extracting gold from the earth is not worth the value that is assigned to this “precious” metal.

Poisonous chemicals such as Cyanide and Mercury are dumped on to rocks to separate the gold from the rock ore, this leaching process allows the miners to retrieve a greater amount of gold from the rocks. But the retrieval of this metal by using this process does not come without a price. The chemicals can be spilled and run off can find its way to lakes and rivers, killing the ecosystem. Polluting the water and animals that need the water source to survive. Exposure to these chemicals can cause serious damage; they have affects on the central nervous, respiratory and cardiovascular systems. Knowing that these chemicals can cause serious damage to human, animals and plant life, why do the mining companies still use them? They do because they are trying to make money, the buck is the bottom line. The companies will continue to treat the environment in such a way until the mining laws created in 1872 are changed. They are out dated and need to be changed, steps to protect the environment and its ecosystems need to be made. Gold is not worth the life of any creature no matter how big or small.