Abstract

Based on the data of global mineral production and ore recovery in mining and mineral processing, this paper presents the annual production of 25 minerals and calculates the annual losses of 20 minerals from the year 1920 to 2018. The results indicate that the annual production of 23 minerals has increased by between 1 and 930 times since 1920, similar to the increase in the GDP per capita since 1960. At the same time, a vast amount of minerals has been lost in mining and mineral processing since 1920. Hence, this paper discusses the possibility of increasing ore recovery ratio.