A few kilometers west of the metropolis Baotou in Inner Mongolia is a giant, poisonous lake where chemicals from one of China’s biggest mining towns harbors.
A woman in Baotou Mongolia complain burning eyes, difficulty breathing and chest pain. Photo: DAVID GRAY / Reuters
The farmers who lived in villages in the former agricultural area had to move. Yields were uselgelige and the animals were sick. Those remaining complaints over pollution and health problems. Now, they are on the sidelines and look beyond a barren landscape.
This lifeless landscape is among the world’s most polluted, but also the key to China’s new wealth. The extraction of the coveted minerals has cost.
“World’s Worst Place”
The pipes spewing polluted water from the smelter at Xinguang. Photo: DAVID GRAY / Reuters
A row of pipes from smelter ducks on the lake shore. Black mud ejected, as of giant fountains, before it gets into the lake where it is deposited as a tenacious mass of lifeless beaches.
Over the whole is a haze of black, sticky dust from the coal plant.
BBC Future has followed a group of architects and designers from Unknown Fields hit. They have traveled back through the chain of suppliers that ensures modern convenience, and ended up in the barren steppe, Inner Mongolia, which they proclaim to “the world’s worst place.”
Here you can see the artificial lake on Google Maps.
Residents of the village Xingauang outskirts of Baotou complain dirty, bad air, over breathing problems and illnesses which they believe is related to environmental toxins.
An unnamed coal worker takes a rest in Baotou, Mongolia. Photo: ELIZABETH DALZIEL / AP
They believe life was better before the development of iron and steel works really took off in the 1980s and contributed to China’s vast prosperity. It looks smaller here than in cities like Beijing and Shanghai.
The back of the medal
The source of wealth is also the reason for the misery in Inner Mongolia. The back of the medal is more visible on the plains of Baotou.
Behind the factory seen coal power plant that provides electric power to the smelter in Baotou.
In addition to the extraction and processing of coal, steel and aluminum, is one of the world’s largest deposits of rare elements here.
In the bedrock north of Baotou, in the Gobi desert, located minerals in veins, often together with radioactive and toxic substances.
Toxic waste
Production takes place in large opencast. It is resource-intensive and leaves toxic waste in large quantities. For each tonne mined, is two tons of waste again.
Mining, surface in Baiyunebo mine north of Baoto. Photo: AP
The recovery of the 17 so-called “rare earths”, which neodymium, yttrium, cerium and lanthanum, is important in China’s new economy.
Former US dominated this trade. Now China has taken over and accounts for 95 percent of world production. World demand for these minerals increases.
Many of the substances used in all possible advanced technology, including smart phones, computer monitors, camera lenses and magnets.
And, ironically, in green technology such as wind turbines and hybrid cars.
The satellite image shows mine in Bayan Obo in the Gobi desert north of Baotou, where the majority of the rare minerals extracted. The blue-black top fields opencast. The dark, elongated bars to the right of the image are ponds where contaminated wastewater discharged.
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan monument in Baotou. Photo: Matthew J. Stinson (CC BY-NC 2.0)
When tourists come to Baotou is not to look at the industry or mines, but to see the Great Wall and Genghis Khan Mausoleum, and perhaps to sail on the Yellow River.
Trying shows that the river is heavily polluted by heavy metals, and several of them stemming from Baotou area, according to a report from the University of Inner Mongolia.
Authorities in Baotou plans to clean up, and has started a program to monitor air pollution. New air emissions from coal combustion are not allowed. Over a period of three to five years, the quality of the air be better, writes China Daily. But it is hardly enough to solve the problems in Baotou.
(Please note that the snapshots in the article is from 2010.)
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