Areva has implemented a plan to stop radioactive waste rock and scrap metal from getting into the local community, but the problem is clear.

FORBES: The Uranium Rush Is On

Some geologists falsely believed heat from the waste could melt surrounding rock and form a radioactive volcano.

FORBES

Already Finnish nuclear utility Posiva is test-drilling the rock beneath Olkiluoto island with the idea of interring waste one-third of a mile down.

FORBES: The Big Dig

The phosphate rock industry there (extracted to use in fertilisers) leaves a waste called phosphogypsum. this is around and about 30 parts per million (ppm, and normal soil is about 3 ppm) uranium and it can most certainly be processed to extract that.

FORBES: Iran Announces New Uranium Deposits: Don't Panic!

Besides the unsightly effects that many mines have on the landscape, they usually churn out vast quantities of toxic waste in the form of acidic drainage-water and tailings the fine particles of rock produced when ore is ground down to release the minerals it contains.

ECONOMIST: Mine pollution