Bioleaching as an environmentally sustainable alternative to smelting

¶ … bioleaching technique for extracting precious metals from the earth. More specifically, bioleaching consists of the use of bacteria to consume the unusable portions of material in which naturally-occurring deposits of precious metals typically exist in nature. Those metals are valuable because of their usefulness in the components of mobile cellular telephones, computers, and other modern digital and communications technology. Previously, precious metal extraction has been limited to the use of other industrial techniques and processes such as smelting large quantities of deposits in which those metals occur naturally.

What is the author's position regarding the issue?

The author strongly suggests that the increasing industrial reliance on bioleaching is a good thing for various reasons. First, it permits mining for precious metals in materials that were previously considered nothing more than industrial waste material. The natural occurrence of precious metal resources are rapidly being depleted so the ability to extract them from industrial waste greatly extends the life of naturally-occurring precious metals resources. Second, the author emphasizes the comparative ecological cleanliness and environmental benefits of using bioleaching instead of traditional methods of precious-metal extraction. In particular, smelting is associated with significant environmental contamination and bioleaching eliminates that source of pollution of the global environment and biosphere.

5. Is it worthy of your belief? (Did the author convince you?)

Based only on the objective information provided by the author, the argument in favor of increasing the use of bioleaching is convincing. Beyond relying on the information in the article, I would want to know what (if any) are the risks and potential problems associated with bioleaching to conduct a risk-to-benefit analysis by weighing those concerns against the comparable risks and potential problems identified by the author in connection with traditional precious-metals extraction techniques.