There are different types of mine waste. Certainly you don't want to spread waste contaminated with heavy metals, but most mine waste is just rocks that have been ground up and filtered by a sluice or shaker table to get the tiny fraction of the ore that is actually valuable.
That doesn't quite generalize to all mining/quarrying. For instance, talc(um) is often contaminated with asbestos because the two minerals often found in close proximity to one another. I don't think anyone is suggesting spreading either of those on fields, but a modicum of care needs to be taken regardless.
The problem is, once there's a commodity market for this product, unscrupulous suppliers are going to be adding the more hazardous mixtures to the market place.
You're allowing second-order effects to dominate your thinking about a first-order problem. I see this a lot, here, and in real life. Example:
A: "lets fit a defibrellator at the pool"
B: "but what if we get sued" ?
outcome: nothing. Were they sued? were they less likely to be sued? what if they are sued for NOT having a defib? This is racionation to endless effect.
yes, there will be bad actors who contaminate their dust. There are bad actors who contaminate food, drugs, water, fertiliser, music, books, Luis Vuitton suitcases, Lobsters...
Typically speaking, if you're mining rocks, that's a quarry. The article also suggests using waste from steel and cement manufacturing, which is crazy.
The article also suggests using waste from steel and cement manufacturing, which is crazy.
<citation required>
If the production process is happening anyway, and if the waste exists anyway, why is it definedly crazy to re-purpose it? It isn't neccessarily the best at scale economic source of the kinds of rock dust we need, but if you have it, and it worked, then (without citing specifics like cross contamination risks or at scale problems) why is this specifically more crazy than the idea itself?
