← on nowLGR-040 · v0.1.0 · model · estimate mines: how much, per second and per year
mines · tailings and mercury
mine waste, tonnes
14 billion
a year
444
a second
38 million
a day
mercury into rivers, kilograms
840,000
a year
0.027
a second
2,300
a day
method tailings from global mine production and ore grades (Adiansyah et al. 2015; Global Tailings Review); mercury from UNEP Global Mercury Assessment 2018 (ASGM share).
- tailings are held behind about 30,000 dams. brumadinho, 2019: 270 dead in minutes. nobody counts all the dams.source: ICOLD; Global Tailings Review 2020
- a phone holds about sixty elements. each one came out of a hole.source: USGS
- this page is served from machines built from those holes.source: methodology note
live. this is the channel itself. embed it anywhere:
<iframe src="https://thetoll.earth/?channel=mines" width="100%" height="520" style="border:1px solid #D9DDDB" title="the toll · mines"></iframe>
or the whole broadcast, every channel, the same for everyone:
<iframe src="https://thetoll.earth/?embed=1" width="100%" height="520" style="border:1px solid #D9DDDB" title="the toll · on now, everywhere"></iframe>
how this number is built
- method
- tailings from global mine production and ore grades (Adiansyah et al. 2015; Global Tailings Review); mercury from UNEP Global Mercury Assessment 2018 (ASGM share).
- range
- tailings 10–14 Gt/yr; ASGM mercury 700–1,000 t/yr
- confidence
- estimate
- weakness
- tailings tonnage is derived, not reported; ASGM mercury is by nature informal.
- dispute
- dispute LGR-040 · corrections are credited
- data
- channels.json (sign-in) · full entry · CC BY 4.0