Government procures mercury-free technology for small-scale miners
The government of Ghana has approved and procured a mercury-free mineral processing technology for small-scale and community mining programs in order to create long-term jobs while also protecting the environment, miners’ lives, communities, and the general public. The technology will result in the complete eradication of mercury from small-scale mining in the country, which will have an impact on the overall mining ecosystem.
Commodity Monitor Limited, a Ghanaian firm, has developed a new technology to help small-scale miners improve their operations, increase gold recovery to over 90%, and protect the environment from toxic mercury poisoning, which is harmful to the ecosystem and aquatic life.
The government and the industry regulator as cited by the Business and Financial Times on Friday, November 12, have agreed to purchase an additional 100 units of the technology for use in community mining sites across the country.
Thousands of jobs for young people involved in artisanal and small-scale mining could be created as a result of this.
The mining plants are delivered as fully integrated modular solutions that include everything from ore to gold ore or bagged mineral concentrates, all without the use of mercury.
It can undertake mechanical scrubbing, crushing, and milling while the concentrator washes the ore and recovers both fine and coarse gold.
The Minerals Commission has currently deployed certain quantities to Ellembelle, Tinga, Tarkwa, and Kade, with the intervention receiving widespread support from the sector’s miners.
Speaking to the media after demonstrating and handing over the technology to community miners at Akoon, a mining community in the Tarkwa Nsuaem Municipality in the Western Region, Stephen Yeboah, Chief Executive Officer of Commodity Monitor Limited, explained that the use of chemicals in mining at any level affects not only those directly involved but also the larger society.
He expressed concern about the unrestricted usage and exposure of mercury in artisanal and small-scale mining saying “Mercury exposes miners and their communities to long-term effects such as seizures, visual and hearing loss, and delays in childhood development”.
Mr. Yeboah explained that reckless mining activities endanger the country’s forest resources and natural landscapes, stating that “the country suffered an alarming 60% decline in primary rainforests in 2018,” adding that this is the tropical country with the largest proportion of rainforest loss”.
The unsustainable and illegal mining, Mr. Yeboah disclosed, is one of the main causes of forest and river body deterioration and that a soil investigation in the Pra River Basin, which covers the country’s southwestern region, found deteriorating soil and water resources.
He claims that the technology can process sand, clay, and hard rock and that the modular nature of the mining machine design allows for the addition of different modules to expand the plants as needed.
“This allows miners to gain a return on investment as the miner expands, the facility is made to specifically remediate mercury-contaminated areas and recovering significant quantities of gold in the process”, Mr. Yeboah reiterated.
It was further disclosed that artisanal and small-scale mining enterprises have had an unrestricted reliance on mercury as the primary method of gold recovery for many years.
“This has left extensive levels of mercury in tailings in both mining and non-mining communities. In mercury mining districts, soil can become heavily polluted due to the extensive nature of mining and refining activities.
“The truth with the introduction of the new technology is that those young people interested in mining under the community mining programme or those with concessions can now mine without the use of chemicals and achieve high gold recovery too” he noted.
In regions where chemicals are used for mining, the uncontrolled and inefficient use of these compounds assures that they end up in communities, causing aquatic life to suffer.
With respect to difficulties and bad consequences of these chemicals, he stated that the government is making a concerted effort to guarantee that the teeming youth are not permanently barred from mining, but are instead given a fresh lease on life and assisted with different equipment to mine ethically.
“We are ready to support and make the machine available to those interested in mining and have acquired concessions with all the support they needed to succeed”
Source: Richard Mensah Adonu | Join our Telegram Group
