Pollution Kills 40 Percent of Us – Artisanal Gold Mining

Artisanal Gold Mining

Pollution, in one form or another, kills 40 percent of the worlds population

Thank you for joining me at Twilight Earth, for an in-depth look at the Top Ten Worlds Worst Pollution Problems. You can click here for the feed, which will open in a new tab, to have these sent directly to you, or you can bookmark this site.

This is the second of a ten part series. This article is about Artisan Gold Mining.

The Blacksmith Institute and Green Cross Switzerland have produced a report entitled “The World’s Worst Pollution Problems: The Top Ten of the Toxic Twenty.” The Top Ten is a non-ranked set of global issues, which – in the overall judgment of a panel of expert advisers – represent ongoing activities and conditions that pose the greatest threat to human health. As a result of these studies, a team of researchers studying population growth, pollution and disease found that 40 percent of deaths worldwide are caused by water, air and soil pollution.

Mercury amalgamation results in

30% of the world’s small-scale

mercury releases, affecting up to

15 Million miners, including

4.5 Million women and

600,000 children

If you like, you can click here for an introduction to this series.

Here is the link to the first Article; Contaminated Surface Water

Artisanal and amall-scale mining refers to mining activities that use rudimentary methods fo extract and process minerals and metals on a small scale.

Artisinal miners also frequently use toxic materials in their attempts to recover metals and gems. Such miners work in difficult and often very hazardous conditions and, in the absence of knowledge or any regulations or standards, toxic materials can be released into the environment, posing large health risks to  miners, their families and surrounding communities. In this context, gold mining operations are particularly dangerous, as they often use the mercury amalgamation process to extract gold from ores.

Artisanal (or small scale) Gold mining accounts for at least 25 percent of the world’s total gold supply. The gold miners combine mercury with silt to form a hardened amalgam that picks up most of the gold from the silt. The amalgam is later heated with blow torches over an open flame to evaporate the mercury, leaving small gold pieces. The gaseous mercury is inhaled by the miners and mercury that is not inhaled settles into the surrounding environment where it is absorbed and processed by a variety of living organisms. This transforms the mercury into Methylmercury, one of the most dangerous neurotoxins that contaminate the food chain.

Context

Most artisanal gold miners are from socially and economically marginalized communities, and turn to mining in order to escape extreme poverty, underemployment and landlessness. Despite the many dangers of this activity, artisanal mining operations continue to spread as the demand for metals increases and other livelihoods such as farming, are no longer economically viable.

UNIDO estimates that mercury amalgamation from this kind of gold mining results in the release of an estimated 1000 tons of mercury each year, which constitutes about 30% of the world’s anthropogenic mercury emissions. In addition, as much as 95% of this mercury is released into the environment.

A study of artisanal gold mining in Peru concluded that for every gram of gold that is produced, at least two grams of mercury are emitted into the atmosphere.

Health Effects

Exposure to mercury can cause kidney problems, memory loss, miscarriages, psychotic reactions, respiratory failure, neurological damage and death.

Sites that have been noted as examples of the problem

Trust My Legs Mine site, Ghana

Prey Meas Goldmines, Cambodia

Tambacounda Region, Senegal

Manica, Mozambique

What is being done

The Blacksmith Institute has initiated a series of technology demonstrations to limit mercury emissions associated with small-scale mining, involving the use of retort technology to reduce mercury vapors and enable recapture of mercury from the amalgam for reuse.

What you can do

Find out where the gold the gold you are buying is coming from. This is one of the few cases where putting your purchasing dollars behind a big corporation is better than supporting the small guy. And even better alternative is not purchasing gold. It’s an unfortunate fact that as economies fail, the demand for gold rises in the wake of weakening dollars. This confluence of events is especially damaging to those third world countries who are already poor, contaminate and poison themselves in an attempt to supply first world countries with gold.

Be aware, Spread the word, Alter the Eco

Photo’s courtesy of 2eomca, rickydavid via Creative Commons license

Source; Blacksmith Institute

Related posts:

1. Pollution Kills 40 Percent of Us – Contaminated Surface Water
2. Gold Mine to Supreme Court, “It’s OK if I Dump my Junk in That Lake, Right?”
3. 40 Percent of Global Death Attributed To Pollution