Do not forget to recycle those batteries! This photoshop gives you perspective on how much target material you get out of mines. One of the biggest problems with the mining of metal ores is that the environmental costs are not incorporated into the monetary cost of the product. Consequently, taxpayers usually take up the tab for remediation of the toxic residues from the ores of nickel and copper, not to mention the ripped up landscape (I do not know if this is also true of diamond mines). Incorporating the environmental costs into the price is not easy because consumers would respond to higher prices by importing ores from countries with less stringent environmental regulations.