Half of Buenos Aires’ economy currently depends on mining, except that nowadays most artisanal and small-scale mines mix mercury with gold-bearing material into a mercury-gold amalgam that’s heated. The mercury vaporizes, leaving behind the ore. Miners and their families inhale the mercury vapors or absorb the metal through their skin — not good. The miners work “without gloves or any kind of protection,” Oliveros says. “It’s totally unregulated and out of control.” He and his 26-year-old wife tell OZY they only recently learned about the potentially devastating health threats posed by this silver liquid metal, and now they’re scared.
read more... http://www.ozy.com/fast-forward/the-illegal-gold-mining-boom-thats-poisoning-colombia/79728
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