Artisanal and small-scale gold miners regularly use mercury to help them separate gold from other material, and most of that mercury ends up in the environment. In 2015, according to the UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) 2018 Global Mercury Assessment, artisanal and small-scale mining emitted some 800 tonnes of mercury into the air, roughly 38 per cent of the global total, and also released some 1,200 tonnes of mercury to land and water. Mercury poisoning also represents a serious and direct health threat to the 12 million to 15 million people who work in the sector around the world. Reducing mercury emissions and releases from mining is a key goal of the Minamata Convention, which requires countries with small-scale gold mining to produce national action plans to reduce or eliminate mercury from the sector.
read more... https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/why-mercury-still-poses-important-threats-human-health
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