What Is The Destruction Of Mercury In Latin America

     Heavy metals, such as copper, lead, mercury, and selenium are another group of toxins that pollute the water as well as the rest of the environment. The source of many of these pollutants are industries, automobile exhaust, mines, and even natural soil.

Mercury is another toxic pollutant that may be found in the tailings and in the surface and ground water supplies of the Silver Bow Creek area. While mercury is

In the middle ages, farmers came upon the issue of barren fields after their repeated use. By planting countless crops of corn in one area of land for decades, the soil became depleted of the nutrients necessary to grow the crop (The Editors of…”). Granted, the three field system became a popular method to combat this inconvenience, but throughout history, humans constantly need to solve the issues they created themselves. During the California Gold Rush, some 100,000 non-natives rushed to San Francisco and the surrounding area in the hopes of striking literal gold. However, commercial gold mining is the largest source of mercury release, a liquid metal that causes nervous system failure, kidney damage, and even death in humans and other organisms alike (“The Gold Rush of 1849”). Even disease contamination of surface-level water is caused by humans, whether by mistake or otherwise, affects not only those bathing and cooking with the water, but those living in the water - fish, aquatic plants, etc. Even by making valiant efforts to reduce our use of coal and oil by converting to nuclear and solar energy, the waste products cause more harm than good. The land that we use again and again is treated poorly and without much thought as agriculturalism becomes a larger part of survival throughout history.

The Department of Public Health issued a guide for women and children to use at supermarket fish counters to educate them about the healthiest seafood choices. With the help of the Department of Public Health and their issued guide for women and children, it informs women who are pregnant to only eat one meal a month of Connecticut fish because of the mercury found in them. According to the For Women, Children Especially, Some Fish Better Than Others newspaper article, “Fish that should not be eaten at all by anyone include Wyassup Lake in North Stonington, Dodge Pond in East Lyme and Versailles and Papermill ponds in Sprague that are located in twelve waterways around the state that are polluted with harmful chemicals” (Benson, 2).

In the past several decades years, human activities - particularly polluting the environment, have quickly revolutionized the complex life-forms. Atlantic Tomcod, for example, are now resistant to toxic PCBs (polychlorinated biphenuls) dumped in lake, rivers, and coastal waters during the 20th century. In addition, yellow perch, a type of Canadian fish, also managed to be adapt to 80 years of heavy metal. As you can see, these problems are now growing, where brown trout (Salmo trutta) living in England, are also facing the same problem. Areas where brown trout lives, have history of mining, “Dating back to the bronze age, and zinc, copper, tin, arsenic and other heavy metals, continue to get washed into the watercourse.” In fact, certain rivers

As already stated, many other locations around the world are affected by mercury poisoning and contamination. For example, Canada and Japan have an extensive history of mercury poisoning, including neurologic symptoms and contaminated fish. These studies have has been documented since the 1950’s in these locations. In fact, the contamination became so problematic the Ontario health department formed a task force on organic mercury in 1972. Further, recent protesting throughout Toronto has asked for Canada to address the contamination of mercury. Findings revealed levels of mercury exceeding those of international standards and included the highest recorded mercury contamination among in the western part of the world. (CITE 6)

Once released into the environment, mercury is free to be taken up by plants and animals but is not toxic unless transformed through bacterial or chemical processes into its organic form, the most famous of which is methylmercury [6], [8], [10] Methylmercury impacts several critical organ systems and particularly toxic to the development of the fetus [11]. It also bioaccumulates in living organisms, which leads to higher levels of methylmercury with each increasing trophic level [10], [12], [13]

Often, toxic substances are being drained into the air, waterways, and undergrounds wells. According to the report by Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), over 60 million pounds of deadly chemicals are produced by industries in Florida. Notably, Florida’s water has been suffering mercury contamination until the state’s department of migration issues a circular regularly for regulations of eating freshwater fish in the region (Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission). In fact, such metals emanate from coal combustion’s emissions which run into water bodies. Not to mention, pesticides and herbicides utilized by government and homeowners pollute the environment (Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission). Indeed, all chemicals released into the atmosphere find themselves in rivers.

-Mercury is a persistent substance which means a number of mercury increases in concentration as you go the in the food chain, so the higher up the chain and the higher amount of mercury. This tendency is called biomagnification. For instance, plankton contains 0.00001 ppm of mercury and if you go up 5 levels to the top of the pyramid which is a shark, it contains 1 ppm of mercury. This may pose a potential health threat to those animals and humans who consume the fishes or shark.

These toxins more often than not can have fatal consequences. Mercury is definitely one of the number one most dangerously used elements in our history. The first written record of this element is credited to Aristotle Often called the element of the ancients, mercury was dated back to as far as the 15th century BCE when it was found in ceremonial cups in Egyptian Tombs (Czaika). It is known that the Romans were the first to actually mine and use this element for everyday needs. Even at these times humans were aware of the fact that the element was poisonous. They had a mine in Spain that was worked by slaves, prisoners, and other undesirables. After the mine was dry they would use it as a prison system for the workers. Most of them would die very slow and painful deaths, bringing a long end to a short life (Sloane). In ancient China, mercury was used for a variety of medical needs. From a contraceptive, to a cough serum, to a remedy for unknown sexually transmitted diseases (Kok). People would consume mercury as if it was candy. This practice also spread to India. People did not understand the harmful toxins that they were ingesting.

The correlation of this issue of mercury poisoning and dolphin hunting begins with the Minamata disease that was discovered in the 1950s. The Minamata disease is a neurological syndrome due to mercury poisoning, there is a segment within the film showing people suffering from the disease and people trying to protest the government in order to show the world the issue of mercury poisoning. At the same time, they protested the government because the government chose to ignore the problem and the government also attempted to cover it all up from public view by calling the disease contagious. To clarify, dolphin meat contains extremely high levels of mercury due to the environment they live in, which also means the ocean contains mercury as well. The Japanese people are eating this mercury contaminated dolphin meat while the government and the IWC are ignoring the connection of mercury poisoning due to dolphin meat consumption and ignoring the past events of the Minamata

Mercury in the air settles into the water or land, where it can be washed into water. When the mercury is deposited, some organisms can change it into methyl mercury. Methyl mercury is a very toxic form that builds up in fish, shellfish, and animals that

Although studies on the impact of mercury pollution due to small-scale mining were already numerous, they were generally technical in nature. Few works touched on the economic aspects of the problem and did so only in a superficial and summary manner. So far, there is no available study that conducted an economic analysis in a more detailed and quantitative way in the Philippines or elsewhere.

The article describes briefly how the mercury ends up in the fish we eat, how the rain grabs the mercury from the atmosphere and deposits it into the lakes and oceans. Because of the food chain, the largest of the aquatic animals will have the highest amount of mercury, whales and sharks for example. So, communities high in whale and shark consumption will show the greatest risk of mercury poisoning.

The CTBC claims that e-waste accounts for approximately 40 percent of these three toxins that end up landfills, noting that "just 1/70th of a teaspoon of mercury can contaminate 20 acres of a lake, making the fish unfit to eat."