The coal industry has given rise to many environmental issues such as adverse effects on the air, land and water quality of the surrounding areas of the mines and continues to affect global environment as a whole. The damaging effects coal burning on the environment causes many premature deaths worldwide. In 1999 World Health Organization reported that deaths caused by fossil fuels emissions caused 3 million premature deaths, about 8000 per day. With modern industrialization the demand for energy is rapidly increasing, and coal being a cheap method continues to be the leading electricity-generating source having a share of 40.6% according to International Energy Agency report released in 2012.
China is the main producer of coal having 45.9% of the total coal production share in the world (International Energy Agency, 2012 report, pp 14). Thus it is clear that China would have the biggest impact on the environment due to its large scale coal production. Bian et al in their paper say that the wastes of coal production are dumped in a cone shaped heap and has severe environmental consequences through dust generation, leachate production, self ignition and because of having no vegetation cover (Bian et al, 2008, pp 625). In the past, attention was paid to air pollution caused by emissions in the coal burning process however now more research is done to environmental degradation in terms of land pollution due to improper waste management. When there is no proper disposal of soal mining wastes, they diffuse into the soil and nearby rivers, disrupting the water and land quality, esthetic and visible issues and creates ecological hazards. Runsheng LV and Yanyong Bo Ll in their paper examining groundwater pollution due to mining in china have stated that the ground water reaches only 65% of the water quality and this situation is fairly grim (Bo LI, pp 3) china there are about 4.5 billion tons of stockpiled wastes due to coal mining occupying 1700 waste dumps spread over 15000 hectares of land out of which 200 waste dumps are self igniting.
