Mining has been Zambia’s economic backbone for more than a century — though it’s really more of a copper backbone than gold. It’s built cities, created thousands of jobs, and kept the government’s coffers from running dry. The country is literally sitting on a fortune in minerals, which sounds great on paper. But the same industry pumping money into the economy has also dumped pollution, toxic waste, and serious health problems on the people who happen to live near the mines.
Zambia mining sector
- 13 to 15% of the GDP
- 70% export earnings
- 700,000 to 800,000 tonnes of copper annually
Zambia’s mining sector is massive — according to the Ministry of Mines, it accounts for 13 to 15% of the country’s GDP and about 70% of export earnings, most of that from copper. The country produces somewhere between 700,000 and 800,000 tonnes of copper annually, making it one of Africa’s top producers. Sure, they mine other stuff too — cobalt, gold, nickel — but copper and cobalt are the real moneymakers, especially now with all the demand for electronics and electric vehicle batteries. The problem is a lot of these mining operations are set up right next to rivers and communities. So, when something goes wrong, the pollution doesn’t have far to travel before it ends up in someone’s drinking water or all over their farmland.
And that’s exactly what happened. In February 2025, a dam at a Chinese-owned copper mine gave way, dumping toxic waste packed with arsenic, cyanide, and uranium straight into the Kafue (kah-foo-ay) River. This isn’t some minor waterway — it’s the main water source for nearly two-thirds of Zambia’s 20 million people. Fish died, crops were destroyed, people lost their livelihoods, and now entire communities are facing long-term health risks like birth defects and cancer.
More than a year has gone by since the disaster at the Sino-Metals Leach Copper Mine in the Copperbelt, and plenty of farmers and residents are still waiting to be properly compensated. Despite that, the government gave the company permission to restart operations in late February 2026. After they rebuilt the failed tailings dam, the company started gearing up again in early March, planning to stockpile enough ore to get back to full processing in the next few months. That move has sparked a lot of anger from civil society groups and locals, who think it’s way too early and the environmental mess is nowhere near cleaned up.
But this isn’t exactly new territory for Zambia. What’s happening now looks a lot like what went down in Kabwe, where mining pollution is still causing problems more than 30 years after the mine shut down. Kabwe is basically one of the country’s most notorious pollution cases. From 1904 to 1994, it hosted one of the biggest lead mines in the world, and for decades it covered the whole area in toxic lead dust.
One of the biggest issues in Zambia is that the country just doesn’t have the resources to properly enforce environmental rules. There’s not enough funding for monitoring, not enough equipment to test for pollution, and not enough trained inspectors on the ground. So, when companies break the rules, there’s a good chance nobody will catch it, and even if they do, there might not be any real consequences.
On top of that, Zambia depends heavily on mining for revenue and foreign investment. That creates a real tension between trying to grow the economy and actually protecting the environment and people’s health. The government may hesitate to put strict rules on the mining companies because of concerns about losing investment.
