By Colin Payne / Source: Inhabitat

If you’ve seen images of the tar sands tailings ponds [2] and couldn’t believe your eyes, hang onto your seats because this massive toxic lake in China puts Canada’s oil patch to shame. The Baogang Steel and Rare Earth Complex in Inner Mongolia is surrounded by an enormous lake of toxic sludge, and it’s a scene of utter environmental destruction, like something out of the bleakest dystopian sci-fi click you could imagine. The worst part, perhaps, is in knowing that it became this way as a result of human activity.

The Baogang Steel and Rare Earth Complex [4], located near Baotou, Mongolia, is one of the world’s main suppliers of rare earth minerals, which are used to make all manner of electronic gadgets, including smart phones, flat screen televisions—as well as things like wind turbines and electric car motors. Harvesting minerals from the Earth in such quantities has depleted resources substantially, and the scene surrounding the plant is enough to make you question the humanity’s collective sanity.

Tim Maughan at the BBC describes it first-hand [5]:

“From where I’m standing, the city-sized Baogang Steel and Rare Earth complex dominates the horizon, its endless cooling towers and chimneys reaching up into grey, washed-out sky. Between it and me, stretching into the distance, lies an artificial lake filled with a black, barely-liquid, toxic sludge. Dozens of pipes line the shore, churning out a torrent of thick, black, chemical waste from the refineries that surround the lake. The smell of sulphur and the roar of the pipes invades my senses. It feels like hell on Earth.”

Read more @ Inhabitat