Pub. 6 2016 Issue 3

19 MINING FOCUS MINING AND CHRISTMAS Thanks to the mining industry, Christmas 2016 looks like it will be a good year for electronic gear. Why is mining important when it comes to giving digital gifts? Goods can generally be divided into two categories: those that are grown, like the orange at the bottom of a stocking, and those that are mined. Digital electronics are definitely in the mined category. Obviously, you can’t walk through a field and harvest cell phones, televisions, computers, laptops, tablets, and so on. You can’t even harvest wires, screws, or circuit boards. The materials that go into these products must be mined. For example, most cell phones contain metals such as copper, silver, gold, palladium, platinum, and tungsten. They also use petroleum products. MINING AND CHRISTMAS continued on page 20