Despite the success of the mining industry to improve its environmental performance, environmentalists continue to target it for sins both real and imagined. Many, if not most, mining operations around the world conform to environmental standards and progress never ceases in developing new and cleaner techniques. That, however, isn't good enough for some European environmental groups who argue that nickel is toxic to humans and should be banned. Though few expect their campaign to enjoy any success, it doesn't have to be to have an effect on us all. For years the myth that power lines could cause some types of cancers prevented their installation in many neighborhoods, the banning of DDT has caused the deaths of millions due to malaria and hundreds of millions of poor in developing nations may never be able to feed themselves because of a possible ban on genetically modified foods.
Nickel is merely their latest target.
At the core of every environmentalist's belief system is something referred to as Intrinsicism. These things should be valued for their own sakes irrespective of any criteria. Any use of animal or mineral outside of worshipping it is morally wrong and even inherently evil, depending on the level of supposed transgression. That means that man is evil and an aberration in the scheme of things. Their philosophy holds that the more successful that man is, the more evil he is.