On: Phytomining – Extracting Minerals via Plants

[vintermann]

I know there's impressively little metal in most metal ores mined today. It's actually kind of amazing how comparatively cheap metals like copper are, considering they move and crush maybe 1000 or 10000 kgs of rock for every kg of metal (the mine waste isn't pleasant to think about either).

I guess that in contaminated soil, waste ash ponds etc. the metal is in forms which are harder to extract or separate. Because from just weight ratio, it's hard to understand how rock is better.

[euroderf → vintermann]

> considering they move and crush maybe 1000 or 10000 kgs of rock for every kg of metal

This is more or less what I visualize if I get weary of recycling bits of metal (bottle caps, aluminum foil, ...).