From the PoV of Alchemists they rarely (ie. never for the most part) appear as unbound elements in nature. They are elements that require a lot of chemical pro

From the PoV of Alchemists they rarely (ie. never for the most part) appear as unbound elements in nature. They are elements that require a lot of chemical processing to seperate and isolate. The downside is that many of those processes generate a lot of toxic waste that requires (but often never receives) after treatment to neutralise. Hence reports of dams of low level radioactive waste and so forth associate with rare earth processing (not so much mining as the concentrates are often mined and then shipped elsewhere for processing). eg: https://www.benarnews.org/english/news/malaysian/rare-earths-10242023150651.html https://www.benarnews.org/english/news/malaysian/rare-earths... has been an on again, off again relationship for a decade and a half now due to the waste piling up.