IMAGINING LIFE AFTER COAL
The Sludge Hub & Company is a network of Abandoned Mine Lands (AML) that hosts ecological restoration and waste reutilization projects. It provides access, support services, and community to a wide range of eco-concerned organizations and individuals operating in post-coal spaces.
A PHOENIX FROM THE ASHES
The coal industry is in its death throes. Its departure has resulted in lost livelihoods for 130,000 Appalachians and a landscape scarred with removed mountaintops, underground chambers, and 12,400 miles of streams poisoned by Acid Mine Drainage (AMD). There are over 58,000 abandoned mines in the United States alone.
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You could call it a problem; we call it a home.
In the wake of coal's departure, we see the opportunity to utilize the discarded scraps of the past and recast them into the foundation of a better future. Our mines are home to a community forged at the nexus of ecology and prosperity; where the most rugged and determined of Earth's champions test their innovations and tinker with the blueprints of eco-industrialism and the economy of survival.