For more than two decades, Ross Orr has been challenging one of mining's most prominent paradoxes: The Sustainability Paradox, which often asks the question: Can extracting the Earth's resources ever truly be sustainable? But his company, BacTech Environmental, believes that the answer lies not in digging deeper but in looking closer at the microscopic world of naturally occurring bacteria.
The company applies a process called bioleaching, which implements naturally occurring bacteria to break down sulfide ores, rock formations that often contain minerals like gold, silver, and other valuable metals. "Our technology implements this bacteria to effectively put metal into solution," Orr explains. "And then we use conventional technologies to take those metals out, freeing the minerals from the sulfide ores."
