Focus on Private Sector: How miners can cut mercury use

“Every nation has a different range of gold-mining operations, each with varying cultures and financial resources,” says Persaud. But in nearly all cases miners often use mercury because it is a “cheap, quick, easy and accessible way of capturing the gold”, he says.

According to Persaud, working out other ways to increase gold concentration is the key to reducing mercury usage because this is essentially the job mercury does.
http://www.scidev.net/global/pollution/analysis-blog/focus-on-private-sector-how-miners-can-cut-mercury-use.html