The town of Herringen in central Germany is famous for a large mountain of salt (sodium chloride), commonly known as table salt. It is so large that the area is now known as Monte Kali. It is the largest artificial salt mountain in the world.
The real truth of this, if discovered, needs to traced back to 1976. When potash salt started to extracted from the mines around the town of Hessen.
At that time, potash used to make various products such as soap and glass. But today it is also uses in various types of fertilizers, synthetic rubber and pharmaceuticals.
Due to which the extraction of potash has increased significantly in the last few decades. One problem with potash is that its mining produces sodium chloride as a byproduct, so it requires space to store it.
The mining company here found a solution by depositing it in the town of Herringen, a few miles away.
This process continued for many years and now there is a huge mountain of salt and the natives call it Monte Kali or Kalimanjaro which is German for potash.
Monte Kali is 530 meters (1,740 ft) above sea level and covers an area of more than 100 hectares. So it is no exaggeration to call it an artificial mountain.
You can see it from anywhere in Herringen, or even just passing it on the motorway. And it has become somewhat of a tourist attraction.
In fact, at one point, people could pay to climb the massive waste dump as part of a guided tour.
The climb took an average of 15 minutes, and the 23-hectare summit plateau offered views over the entire Werra Valley to the Rhön and the Thuringian Forest.
Monte Kali & environment
As you can imagine, a salt mountain of this size in the middle of Germany, near forests and the river Werra, raises some environmental questions.
Research has found that the growing salt pile, which also produces highly salty water, has made Werra salty, as has the groundwater in the area. Of the 60 to 100 species of invertebrates that once called the area around Herringen home, only 3 remain.
Despite of the environmental disaster, the potash industry is really big in the region, with several thousand jobs, so shutting down production isn’t really an option for the authorities.