Africa-Press – Tanzania. THE government is planning to build a gold cyanidation leaching plant that will serve as a training and demonstration facility to stakeholders on how cyanide proves efficiency in mineral processing compared to mercury.
Deputy Minister of State in the Vice President’s (Union and Environment) office, Mr Mwita Waitara disclosed about the plan recently when he made a tour of Geita Region recently.
According to Mr Waitara, the establishment of the plant focuses on serving as a facility for changing the minds of small -scale miners on the benefits of using cyanide in gold processing.
Though he did not specifically state where the plant will be established, the deputy minister said the major objective of the government initiative is to make small-scale miners abandon the use of mercury in gold processing.
Mr Waitara said though the government no longer allows the use of mercury in gold recovery process in the country, it has been difficult to monitor some smallscale miners who have been secretly acquiring it from sources best known to themselves.
“Having noted the impact of mercury on human life, environment and nature, the government in recent years stepped up campaign against the use of the heavy metal in gold processing, but small scale miners are slippery as a few of them have been getting it from secret sources best known to themselves,” he said.
He implored small-scale miners to switch to cyanide in gold processing activities for the betterment of their health and environmental preservation purposes.
“The government came up with strategies to abandon the use of mercury. We have already started to encourage the use of the substitute (cyanide), which has proven to have no effects compared to mercury, if properly handled,” said the deputy minister.
He said the government is aware of health and environment negatives resulting from the use of mercury. He said the heavy metal was proven to be extremely dangerous to human health, animals and the environment in general with long-term impact.
“We find our mothers processing the minerals with bare hands and faces. It is too dangerous, we must abandon mercury use,” he said.
An expert in mineral processing, Mr Lameck Masanja shared his knowledge on the subject, saying indeed mercury had severe consequences on human health, animals, marine life and on the environment in general.
He said apart from the effects brought about by the heavy metal in gold processing, users in the mineral sector have been incurring losses as the level of gold recovery is minimal compared with the use of cyanide.
He said cyanide is easy to handle when used in gold processing and the gold recovery rate is high.
“When you use mercury in gold processing, the rate of mineral recovery is not more than 45 per cent, but when you use cyanide, the yield is much higher,” he said.
According to Mr Masanja, cyanide is easy to be neutralised, completely making it not harmful to human health and environment.
Mr Waitara also urged small miners to stop cutting trees for various mining activities, instead, asking them to switch to iron rods for the same purpose (environmental preservation).
“And let me remind all Councils to respond on the govern ment’s order, using part of their revenues for environmental preservation,” he said.
Earlier, the Regional Commissioner (RC), Engineer Robert Gabriel, commented that the mining sector has to a large extent contributed in both personal and national economic growth, hence the miners should adhere to expert’s directives on free negative mining technologies.
“Environmental preservation should also be our priority as the forests have been immensely affected. The priority should be substitute mining technologies in the mines. We should also stick to regular public education on environmental degradation impacts. We should also control integration between mining activities and water sources” said the RC.
Lake Zone Acting Manager for National Environment Management Council (NEMC), Mr Boniphace Chacha said that the Council’s permit directs mineral processing activities to take place very far from water sources.
He urged the miners to adhere to such directives in a bid to protect people’s health and environment.
