Mercury Pollution Gold’s Dark Side. Small-scale artisanal gold mining has become the world’s leading source of mercury pollution, poisoning air, rivers, and people
This diffuse industry is now the world’s largest mercury polluter, pumping more mercury into the environment than all the world’s coal-fired power plants combined. The mining operations typically leave a trail of mercury waste, putting as many as 100 million people at risk of poisoning.
The vast quantities of mercury already dumped by artisanal mining will persist in ecosystems for hundreds of years.
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