Good Reasons to Allow Copper Mining
- Job opportunites
- Brings money into the local and national economies
- Mining companies build/invest in new housing, school and healthcare facilities for locals
- Good transport links needed for the mines, might benefit locals too
- Waste rock can be used for road-building and foundations of housing, although rarely
Opposing Reasons to Allow Copper Mining
- Destroys the landscape
- Pollutes the enviroment
- 90% of the copper ore is waste rock, only 2-5% of the ore is copper
- Dumped in large piles near the mines
Demonstration
- Copper carbonate -> copper oxide + carbon dioxide
- Copper carbonate is added to a test tube which is placed ontop a blue Busen burner flame for 10 seconds and taken off for 10 seconds
- Repeat until green colour is gone and the "dancing powder" has stopped. This may take up to 8 minutes
- Tap the test tube on the heat proof mat a few times to get the powder to fall to the tube and mix properly
- The test tube is heated over a blue Busen flame again until the contents glow orange/red
- Continue heating for 1 minute the glow appears
- After 1 minute has elapsed, put the test tube on the heatproof mat to cool for 5 minutes
- After cooling, observes the contents