Fairtrade Gold - helping miners take the mercury out of gold jewellery

There are severe risks to health from daily contact with toxic chemicals used to process gold, such as mercury, cyanide and nitric acid. Exposure to mercury vapours and ingestion from contaminated water and food can lead to colic, vomiting, gastroenteritis, kidney complaints, muscular tremors and ulceration of gums.
Chronic mercury poisoning can result in speech disturbances, lack of concentration, depression, muscular atrophy and seizures. In simple terms it destroys life.
But many miners feel they have no choice but to go on using mercury. As one artisanal gold-miner in the Congo told me: "I will die of starvation before I die of mercury poisoning."
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2626690/fairtrade_gold_helping_miners_take_the_mercury_out_of_gold_jewellery.html