Of the items around our homes, almost every one uses a product of mining in one way or another.
If you're reading on a tablet, phone or computer, it contains many materials such as copper, gold and aluminium. The plastic casing is an oil product.
Even if you're reading this in the paper edition, the inks are probably also derived from oil.
While we are rightly concerned about the impacts of mining, our civilisation could not function without it.
One of the most troubling areas is the use of water. There are many ways in which water is necessary to operate a mine, which obviously varies depending on the minerals being extracted.
Water is used to separate minerals in processes such as grinding, flotation and leaching. Minerals are extracted from ore bodies by hydraulic pressure or by dissolving them in water.
After coal is crushed, it's transported in a water-based slurry through pipelines.
Because mining is inherently dirty, it needs water to suppress dust and wash equipment.
Mixed with air, coal dust is dangerous because it can explode or catch fire. Large quantities of water are needed to suppress the dust.
Water also keeps the cutting surfaces on mining equipment cool to further reduce the risk.
In all, each tonne of coal consumes about 250 litres of fresh water plus roughly three times that amount of recycled water.
The Adani Carmichael mine in Queensland has been granted unlimited access to groundwater and, according to their own modelling, could use just over 12,000 megalitres per day (roughly 13 Olympic swimming pools).
That water will come from the Great Artesian Basin which underlies a large part of Australia's arid and semi-arid lands.
Those aquifers supply about 200 towns and settlements, most of which are allowed to draw between 100 and 500 megalitres per year.
While the volume of water currently being extracted is not nearly enough to drain the basin, the problem is that overuse is lowering water pressure.
This then affects human use via bores and wells, where flows are roughly half what they were in 1915. Levels in some bores have fallen by up to 80 metres, while a third have stopped flowing altogether.
It is also depleting natural watercourses and available ground water, which in turn degrades both farming and natural environments.
Then there's the issue of what happens to the water after it's been used. Coal mining makes the water acidic, dissolving otherwise stable materials.
This mobilises metals such as arsenic and lead which, if not contained, drains into rivers and streams.
- The impact of mining will be one topic that will be discussed at Making Australian Agriculture Sustainable, March 17-18, online and at the Shine Dome in Canberra. Tickets via www.sustainableag.org.au
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