Mercury, Gold and the food chain

 

Illegal gold mining has transformed forested land into sand and ponds.Credit: Brett Gundlock for Nature

 

In Latin America, especially in Peru, they are thousands of illegal gold miners who use mercury to extract the gold from the river waters. Mercury absorbs the gold and in this way, they manage to get pure gold from waters.

However, the fate of this mercury is interesting, it comes into contact with the skin of the miners and also it pollutes the river. From the water, it passes to food and enters the food chain. It's exactly the same case as Minamata, Japan and the Minamata disease.

The illegal gold ends into scrap units where it "becomes" legal and then it is traded to US, Canada etc.

In this way, the illegal Latin American gold becomes laptops, smartphones, jewellery and also State Gold.

According to Nature, 

"researchers want to understand how much mercury miners left behind, and how it is moving through the ecosystem. On a sunny June day in La Pampa, the CINCIA team explored the site in preparation for research that will look for mercury contamination in the air, water and soil, as well as birds, fish and other aquatic life. At the first stop, environmental chemist Claudia Vega parted with the group and walked down to the shore of a small pond. Two rusty fuel drums were partially buried in the bank".

 

Netflix documentary

Netflix's documentary on Dirty Gold is apocalyptic.

It shows how illegal gold is related to mafia, drugs, prostitution and environmental catastrophe.

Yannis Zabetakis