Toxic effects of rare earths industry in Inner Mongolia

near Baotou city in Inner Mongolia, … the world’s largest deposits of rare earths, which are vital in making many high-tech products….

Environmental groups have long criticised rare earths mining for spewing toxic chemicals and radioactive thorium and uranium into the air, water and soil, which can cause cancer and birth defects among residents and animals…..

China pays price for world’s rare earths addiction, By Allison Jackson (AFP) – Google News, 7 May 11, BAOTOU, China — Peasant farmer Wang Tao used to grow corn, potatoes and wheat within a stone’s throw of a dumping ground for rare earths waste until toxic chemicals leaked into the water supply and poisoned his land.

Farmers living near the 10-square-kilometre expanse in northern China say they have lost teeth and their hair has turned white while tests show the soil and water contain high levels of cancer-causing radioactive materials.”We are victims. The tailings dam has contaminated us,” Wang, 60, told AFP at his home near Baotou city in Inner Mongolia, home to the world’s largest deposits of rare earths, which are vital in making many high-tech products.”In this place, if you eat the contaminated food or drink the contaminated water it will harm your body,” Wang said, pointing towards lifeless fields now strewn with rubbish around Dalahai village, a few hundred metres from the dump……..
Environmental groups have long criticised rare earths mining for spewing toxic chemicals and radioactive thorium and uranium into the air, water and soil, which can cause cancer and birth defects among residents and animals…..
Wang and the other farmers in Dalahai blame state-owned giant Baogang Group, China’s largest producer of rare earths and a major iron ore miner and steel producer, for poisoning their fields and ruining their livelihoods.

Strong winds whip across the dump’s millions of tonnes of waste, blowing toxic and radioactive materials towards surrounding villages.

“It is the pollution from the tailings dam,” Wang Er, 52, told AFP, pointing a dirty finger at his spiky hair which started turning white 30 years ago.

Baogang, which has rare earths and iron ore refineries stretching for about seven kilometres along a road in the area, did not respond to AFP requests for comment.

But a 2006 study by local environment authorities showed levels of thorium, a by-product of rare earths processing, in Dalahai’s soil were 36 times higher than other areas of Baotou, state media have reported……

“People are suffering severely,” the Chinese-language National Business Daily said in December, citing the official study. Sixty-six villagers died of cancer between 1993 and 2005 while crop yields fell “substantially”.

“There is not one step of the rare earth mining process that is not disastrous to the environment,” Greenpeace China’s toxics campaign manager Jamie Choi said in a recent report.

Choi said the impact of the government crackdown depends on whether it is “implemented properly”.

But the environmental damage already caused by rare earths mining in China could be irreversible, according to Wang Guozhen, a former vice president of the government-linked China Nonferrous Engineering and Research Institute.

“The money we earned from selling rare earths is not enough for repairing the environment … definitely not enough,” Wang told AFP.

AFP: China pays price for world’s rare earths addiction