Minerals are in almost every product in our homes, including many items we find on our Thanksgiving tables, and in the phones we use to call our family and friends on the holiday.
The Minerals Education Coalition recently released its newest infographic on the quantity of minerals needed for each person in the United States this year and we are thankful to all the miners who are helping to provide those raw materials. What is the amount of new minerals that must be provided for every person in the US to make the things we use daily? 39,431 pounds!
That includes the many items we will come in contact with this holiday: like the stones, sand, and gravel it takes to build the houses our families will gather in, the roads they will traverse to visit relatives, and the bridges they will cross to reach friends and families. There’s iron ore, copper, zinc, aluminum and other metals that are needed to build transportation vehicles — whether they be planes, trains, or automobiles — and the lithium and copper needed for those batteries used in electric vehicles. Don’t forget the metals on our dinner table — carving knives, cutlery, serving platters — and the metal pots and pans used to prepare that dinner. And yes, even those aluminum pans needed to pack up the leftovers had their start from mined bauxite.
Metals mining provides copper to our cabling and power systems, metal pipes to heat up our houses, alloy nails and tools to build our houses, steel for the many appliances, and silverware to eat our Thanksgiving meals.
This week we want to thank all those who are involved in the exploration, mining and processing of the minerals we need for the products that can’t be grown but we use Thanksgiving day and every day.
And thank you to all our readers.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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