Going Up! 5 Common Construction Materials that Depend on Mining

Look around you. You’re probably at work, maybe at home, but you’re most definitely in a building of some kind. Whether it’s your home, office, or some other building, it’s a fact that these structures wouldn’t exist without mining. Why? The materials used to build modern homes, offices, sports arenas, theaters, virtually any building you encounter all come from mining. Here are 5 of the most common constructions materials around. Without mining, we wouldn’t be able to use a single one of them.

Steel: Look no further if you want a widely available, cheap, strong material. Steel, which comes from purifying iron ore (which has to be mined), is a universal construction material these days. If you see a building when construction first starts, odds are the workers will be putting a steel frame in place to serve as the “backbone” or frame of the completed structure.

Concrete: Concrete is another material that often forms the foundation of modern buildings. Literally. Most modern structures will have a concrete foundation thanks to the fact that concrete is strong (often reinforced with steel/iron rods), and easily formed. Using molds, wet concrete can be molded into a variety of shapes which makes it useful for serving as not just the foundation of a building, but also as walls or supporting beams. Outside of buildings, concrete is a go-to material for crafting sidewalks and roads. All of this is possible thanks to the mined aggregate (sand, gravel, stone and other rock-like materials) that comprises concrete.

Drywall: Drywall, sheetrock, plasterboard. Whatever you want to call it, drywall is a material you can find all over the interior of buildings. It’s most often used to construct walls and ceilings for rooms inside a home or office. Where does it come from? Drywall’s main component is the mined mineral gypsum, which is combined with several additives to form a paste that is sandwiched between Manila paper and baked at high temperatures in an oven to solidify.

Brick: Brick is a pretty simple building material, but no less dependent on mining. Shale and/or clay are mined, crushed, mixed with water to form a paste, baked in a kiln at high temperatures, and then cut into many pieces. Voila, bricks! It may be pretty basic, but it’s one of the most durable, useful construction materials around and it all starts with the clay and shale that we get from mines.

Aluminum: Besides the fact that aluminum metal has all kind of construction applications, from window frames, to roofing, siding, and staircases, it’s also highly reusable. Aluminum can be re-melted and re-formed indefinitely to make other construction products without losing the metal’s original properties.

I don’t know about you, but I really like my office. And my apartment. And the house where my parents live. And the stores where I shop. And the schools where I studied. Without mining, our ability to construct these buildings would be non-existent. At the very least, they wouldn’t be nearly as safe, sound, and durable as they are today.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: What building materials have you seen or used in your home, office, a store, a church etc. that are made possible by mining? Comment below!