Mineral Use

Mineral Use
	Minerals appear in almost everything people use, from cups and saucers to computers Table 1 outlines the minerals you might come into contact with in a typical day, this is followed by a list of minerals and their general uses. With new technologies and higher standards of living, developed countries have come to depend more and more on the use of minerals but this dependency has to be related to the capacity of those countries to meet the mineral demands. Many of the developed nations are becoming more dependent on foreign countries for their minerals. The US is a mineral rich country; in the 1950s it was nearly self-sufficient in the most important industrial minerals. By the late 1970s it was self-sufficient in only seven of the 36 minerals essential to an industrial society see table 2.
Haematite "Iron Rose" type

Table 1

Action in a typical day	Item used	Mineral Resource
Get out of bed and walk on to the carpet	carpet	Calcium carbonate, (limestone) is used in carpet backing
Switch on electric light, kettle,	Light bulb, kettle	Made of glass, and or ceramics, manufactured entirely from, silica, limestone, talc, lithium borates
In the kitchen stand on lino or ceramic tiles	Lino, floor tiles	Calcium carbonate, clay and wollastonite
Reading the Newspaper, book,	Paper	Many papers are filled with kaolin clay and limestone, sodium sulphate, lime and soda ash are used in processing
Eating breakfast, lunch, dinner	Foods	All fertilisers are composed of some potash, pohosphates, nitrogen and sulphur and other minerals, The acidity of soils are often regulated with gypsum, limestone or sulphur
Clean teeth	Toothpaste	Sodium carbonate, calcium carbonate
At work enter the building	Building	If concrete or stone or brick, it is made entirely from minerals, Steel structural components made from steel requiring fluorospar, bentonite, chromite
In office, use pencil, carbon paper, read trade magazines	Pencil, papers,	Graphite and clay, bentonite, kaolin, titanium dioxide (paper whitener for high quality paper)
Make a phone call and sit at the computer	Communication equipment	Employs numerous minerals, silicon (chip), optical fibres, made from glass, monitor made of glass but tube contain phosphors made from the "rare earth" minerals
Have a relaxing drink with friends in the evening	Drinking water, fruit juice, wine or beer	Filtering and purification are major uses of zeolites, soda ash, lime and salt, perlite, diatomites