We’ve all experienced an eye-opening event or pivotal moment.
When I say pivotal, I mean those times when something really lit a fire under your butt.
Maybe it was a visit to a foreign place or a unique experience that really opened your eyes, or that time your buddy dragged you into a sport and got you hooked. These moments can go on to define who we are, how we live our lives or what work we chose to pursue.
One of my big pivotal moments happened in college. I was fortunate enough to visit the remote Northwest Hawaiian Islands, where I spent two weeks on Midway Atoll. It was a magical place but for one glaring black eye: the shorelines on the receiving end of the currents. Midway is only one-by-two square miles, so you could be walking along, enjoying pristine white sand and water clear as glass, only to turn the corner and be knee-deep in weathered plastic.
The reason for this extreme is Midway’s location. It sits squarely in the center of the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, which is a swirling repository of plastics hailing from any one of the countries bordering the Pacific Rim.
The reality check of seeing the impact we were having in places as remote as Midway formed my pivotal moment. It hit me hard and galvanized me to take action. That formative experience became the basis for my pursuit of a career in Environmental Education.
Here at MBMM, our interest in kicking mercury out of gold mining also arose from a series of immersive experiences.
It began with the mission to design a more effective fine gold sluice. Our founder, Steve Gaber, had focused his engineering skills on improving existing sluice technology with the goal of capturing extremely fine gold. Several of the people he collaborated were involved with the Mongolian ASGM community, and they were motivated to help improve the yield for subsistence miners and eliminate the use of mercury.
This was the start of it all.
Steve was first exposed to the issue of mercury amalgamation through a friend. He began to learn more about how the toxic element was used in gold mining and the impacts it was having on water, land, air and human health. In 2007, Steve made the trip to Mongolia and spoke at a mining conference, where he delivered 40 sluices and their schematics to local miners. While he was there, he toured some of the local mines and spoke with the people at work there, getting a clearer feel for the problem and observing mercury-usage in the field. The experience was impactful, and when he returned home, he began to brainstorm ways he could make a difference.
One of the hurdles he saw was that subsistence miners lacked resources and options.
They had no other method to extract their gold, and even if they did, they lacked the capital to move in a healthier direction. He realized that one thing he could furnish them with was improved technology, and thus the not-for-profit Popandson sluice program was born.
With the blessing of his collaborators, Steve made the fine-gold sluice they’d designed publicly available, distributing the schematics to the ASGM in hopes they’d fabricate it in-country, where it could make the most difference. Since its inception in 2007, the Popandson sluice program has distributed improved sluice technology free of charge and continues to do so today.
Finding an answer to the issue of mercury use in gold mining is going to require many steps. It’s not a one-solution-fits-all problem and the global community will have to form a bridge to solve it. Education and re-training will be as important as access to improved technology that eliminates the need for mercury. People make the greatest impact when they are able to apply their natural strengths as a solution. As an organization, our aptitude lies in improved mining technology, and that’s where we stand to make a difference.