Aside from wind blowing on mine tailings and wasting, there are many other mining activities that can also generate dust such as the removal of vegetation and topsoil, on site blasting and drilling operations, use of crushing, dry grinding and dry screening equipment, construction activities and the driving of vehicles on access and haul roads, etc.
Indeed. Perhaps we have to find what PM is the biggest problem. People evolved to adapt to a different environment of dust (PM) and the dust in our urban environment is different than we are adapted to live with. Take silica PM for example. Silica is abundant in the earth’s crust, but silica dust is rare because of the hardness (quartz is a hard mineral). Thus, environmental processes (erosion from wind and rain) do not create much silica dust. Yet people have learned many ways to crush rock, including quartz, into dust.
In an evaluation of seven asphalt manufacturers, I found a very slight increase of what I expected, PAHs and VOCs, but found much higher levels of silica dust than expected. I expect that the process of crushing and sieving stone to minimize the amount of asphalt cement (the sticky stuff) in pavement, has resulted in an abundant of silica dust. Some data is found here:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/215624894_Ambient_Air_Measurements_in_Communities_Near_Asphalt_Plants?ev=prf_pub
and in the appendix of this:
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/hac/pha/APACCarolinaIncandAssociatedAsphaltInc/APAC%20Carolina%20Inc.&%20Associated%20Asphalt%20Inc.%20HC%202-14-07.pdf
Conference Paper Ambient Air Measurements in Communities Near Asphalt Plants
Particulate matter (PM) in air includes a mixture of solids and liquid droplets. PM comes in a wide range of sizes - those less than 10 micrometers in diameter (PM10) are dangerous as those can get into the lungs with every breath we take and resulting in serious health problems. PM that are less than 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5) in diameter get generated in activities like combustion in power plants, residential forest fires and some industrial processes.
Control of PM emission - Indeed it is a big issue. There are guidelines to keep the PM in ambient air under control. Plantation over loose soils, sprinkling of water over haul roads and work areas, transportation of crushed minerals in covered vehicles (or over-head closed belt systems) etc. could be done.
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