The woman’s eyes blazed as I scanned the feedback form she was showing me. “UN-BELIEVE-ABLE”, read her last word in the form’s final section. It was underlined. An incensed crescendo stabbed and dragged across the page. “Flatty and Pointy are part of us. How could they think about destroying them?” she said, shaking her head in disbelief.

She, like me, had received the form at Cornish Lithium’s recent community consultation. This consultation provided updated details of the mineral exploration company’s plans to reopen Trelavour Pit, a former China clay mine at the top of the Cornish village of St Dennis.

Once mined for kaolin, this time, a new “white gold” is being extracted. Lithium is a critical mineral for the green transition, with demand expected to triple over the next decade due to the increasing electrification of the energy system and the electric vehicles sector.

In west Cornwall, Cornish Lithium are pioneering the mining of lithium from geothermal waters. Pumped from deep in the granite below, the company plans to use a technique known as direct lithium extraction to extract the lithium dissolved in the water, while also capturing the heat for geothermal energy.

Meanwhile, in mid-Cornwall’s Clay Country, Cornish Lithium is proposing more conventional hard rock mining in an existing open pit. However, in revealing the size of the expanded Trelavour Pit, the consultation confirmed the fears of many people in St Dennis: “To enable the proposed development of the site and deliver the economic benefits for Cornwall, these sky tips will need to be removed.”

Sky tips are the sandy waste mounds formed by the China clay industry. But they are heritage as much as waste. Part of the “Cornish Alps”, the sky tips affectionately known as “Flatty” and “Pointy” are emblems for St Dennis, having loomed above the village since the 19th century.

These sky tips have also loomed over my PhD research, which looks at how local communities are experiencing the UK’s new dawn of mining. As the woman’s reaction exemplifies, strong sentiments attached to Flatty and Pointy mean their future is at the core of local responses to the Trelavour Lithium Project. They had been a source of speculation and contention throughout the eight months I lived in St Dennis in 2024.

Outside of the village, critical minerals are the subject of long overdue excitement. As the UK government prepares to release its new critical minerals strategy, there’s renewed enthusiasm for domestic exploration projects for critical minerals such as lithium, tin and tungsten.

Domestic extraction is increasingly considered by western nations as essential for the security and sustainability of mineral supply chains. The return or reshoring of mining to the UK also promises jobs in regions experiencing the decline of employment opportunities through the loss of industry, including Cornwall’s clay country.

As Cornish Lithium highlights, 300 jobs will be created over the Trelavour Lithium Project’s 20-year operation, plus 800 during the construction phase.

Job creation is appreciated in St Dennis, as is Cornish Lithium’s community fund which provides financial support for the vibrant community groups and initiatives in the area. While I lived in the village, locals often lamented the decline of the clay industry, once the primary employer and centre of the community.

This is one of Cornwall’s most deprived areas. Among some, I found a tempered optimism that lithium could rejuvenate the village.

Yet, it is Flatty and Pointy tempering this optimism. While the Clay Country has long been a shifting landscape of pits and tips, blasting and collapsing hills, and villages coming and going, Flatty and Pointy have seemingly transcended this dynamism. In St Dennis residents’ living memory, they have always been there.

For some, the sky tips are dangerous, unsolicited waste. For others, they are gatekeepers to a valuable lithium resource. But in St Dennis, Flatty and Pointy represent unprotected heritage, iconic monuments, access to nature, and a wild, unruly playground. They may not be natural, but they’ve become naturalised within this clayscape as a much-loved landmark.

Yet, not removing the sky tips would present an “ongoing safety risk and make the project unviable”, Cornish Lithium explain. This justification makes sense.

But so too does the injustice felt by many in this village where “all the shit gets dumped in St Dennis” is an oft-repeated, ironic slogan. Lithium mining certainly presents opportunities, but with the loss of Flatty and Pointy, locals worry that it might contribute to this area’s demise too.

The hype for reshoring critical minerals extraction cannot wash over it’s very real consequences for local communities and landscapes. These need not be negative by default. If the mourning period for Flatty and Pointy can be sensitively navigated, a new, more sustainable, mining industry can be reinvigorated in tandem with local communities.

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This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Jamie Hinch, University of Oxford

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Jamie Hinch receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council's Grand Union Doctoral Training Partnership.