[photochemsyn]

You can greatly reduce pollution associated with mining by taking various precautions, but they all have one thing in common: they're expensive to implement. For example, ore-hauling trucks in Alaska could use covered trailers to transport ore to reduce lead/cadmium dust, which gets into local food chains, for example in Alaska:

> "A 2001 National Park Service report documented elevated levels of lead, cadmium, and zinc in vegetation along the road, as well as near the storage area by the port. Concentrations of lead and cadmium, the National Park Service report stated, exceed levels found in “many of the most polluted countries in Central and Eastern Europe and all areas of western Russia.”

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/most-toxi...

Usually mining companies respond by saying that requiring them to implement such solutions ('regulation') is anti-free-market and makes them uncompetitive, as they then have to sell their ore on global markets at higher prices or accept much lower profit margins.

I've never actually seen an industrial pollution problem that didn't have a technical (if sometimes expensive) solution. Making those solutions the norm (kind of like requiring all homes to have toilets, etc.) is the reason why regulation is a good idea, it flattens the markets so noone can undersell using dirty methods.