The cost as an economic indicator to measure the social impact of mining

Abstract

Inside the development of the mining activity two aspects of economic foundation are predisposed: the revenues generated by the commercialization of the minerals and the expenses incurred in the process miner-metallurgist, these last ones usually diversify in operating costs and capital costs. But in few countries that process minerals the concern it has existed to express or to measure for some road the social cost, indicator whose behavior is proportional to the negative impacts that he/she brings gets the development of the mining.  

The present work has as objective to characterize the mining like economic activity, to mention the elements that integrate the range of costs of the mining at the moment and to demonstrate, with the social impacts that its brings gets this activity, the necessity to incorporate the social cost as an expense function.