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Fri, 28 Nov 2003 14:52:46 GMT

 

Mercury A Growing Scourge

press-release

 

The Institute of Science in Society

Science Society Sustainability

http://www.i-sis.org.uk

 

General Enquiries sam

Website/Mailing List press-release

ISIS Director m.w.ho

===================================================

 

ISIS Press Release 28/11/03

Mercury A Growing Scourge

*************************

Mercury pollution is a growing global menace. Prof. Joe Cummins calls for UN

regulation

 

Sources (http://www.i-sis.org.uk/full/mercuryFull.php) for this report are

available in the ISIS members site (http://www.i-sis.org.uk/membership.php).

Full details here

 

Mercury pollution is a growing problem worldwide, especially for communities in

the orient and the arctic. Its impact has also been felt in the gold fields of

South American jungles. The Centre for Science and Environment India (CSE) has

put out a powerful indictment of the problem in their website

(http://www.cseindia.org/dte-supplement/mercury-index.htm). The website includes

evidence that industry consumes and emit mercury at an alarming rate under lax

regulation, that India is a global mercury hot spot and there are significant

health impacts. India imports over 250 tonnes of mercury each year and 220

tonnes leak into the environment. The main culprits are outdated chlor-alkali

plants and thermal power plants.

 

CSE proposes that a reduction in mercury pollution can be achieved in three

ways: switchover of mercury-using products and processes to non-mercury

alternatives, control of mercury release through end-of-pipe techniques, and

mercury waste management.

 

The medical journal Lancet recently summarized concerns over mercury pollution

in India focusing on medical waste from thermometers and blood pressure monitors

of which India produces over 10 million each year. The wastes filter into water

and mercury is released to the air during incineration.

 

Mercury is released to waterways in the form of ionic mercury while atmospheric

releases are about half elemental and half ionic mercury. In 1995, Asia

contributed 50% of total global atmospheric emission of mercury, while Europe

and North America combined contributes less than 25%. Atmospheric mercury is

circulated by wind and deposited in the form of elemental and ionic mercury,

which is converted to alkyl (primarily methyl) mercury that bio-accumulates and

magnifies through the food chain. High levels of methyl mercury have been

encountered in the diets of the residents of coastal India.

 

The impact of mercury pollution has been studied a great deal. The city of

Minimata in southern Japan was subject to widespread methyl mercury poisoning

related to chlor-alkali plant emissions from 1950 to 1969. The resulting

epidemic of mercury poisoning was called Minimata disease, it was the first

record of the impact of methyl mercury poisoning in humans. The impact on the

central nervous system and reproduction was severe, and long-term follow-up of

the affected population showed that the impact was persistent and included a

declining male birth ratio associated with increased fetal male abortion.

 

Prenatal exposure of children to their mother’s dietary intake of methyl mercury

in pilot whale meat in the arctic Faroe Islands was associated with both nerve

and blood defects at even low levels of mercury pollution, and similar results

were reported for the island Maedera off the coast of Morocco, where mercury

accumulated in the deep sea fish black scabbard.

 

Gold mining operations on the Philippine island Mindanoa caused extensive

pollution of waterways and methyl mercury pollution of fish eaten by residents.

Children suffered nerve damage and were underweight. Children and adults in the

Quebec arctic, whose diets include marine mammals polluted with methyl mercury,

showed blood mercury levels above those producing subtle neuro-developmental

defects in other populations.

 

Clearly, the effects of mercury pollution are global in nature and permeate

areas where there is no industrial activity. Mercury pollution even at very low

levels produces subtle defects.

 

The United Nations Environmental program has been slow to act on the global

nature of mercury pollution. The United Nations consideration of atmospherics

aspects of mercury pollution seems to have ignored the need to identify the

sources of atmospheric mercury but instead allowed the problem to be ascribed to

the innocent victims of the deposition.

 

The United Nations will have to deal urgently with the trans boundary mercury

pollution and implement programs for remediation in the polluted countries.

 

 

 

===================================================

This article can be found on the I-SIS website at

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/mercury.php

If you would prefer to receive future mailings as HTML please let us know.

If you would like to be removed from our mailing list - please reply

to press-release with the word in the subject field

===================================================

CONTACT DETAILS

The Institute of Science in Society, PO Box 32097, London NW1 OXR

telephone: [44 20 8643 0681] [44 20 7383 3376] [44 20 7272 5636]

 

General Enquiries sam

Website/Mailing List press-release

ISIS Director m.w.ho

 

MATERIAL IN THIS EMAIL MAY BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT PERMISSION, ON

CONDITION THAT IT IS ACCREDITED ACCORDINGLY AND CONTAINS A LINK TO

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/

 

 

 

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