Hey everyone. If you’ve been following our blog posts, you’ll have heard us reference the Minamata Convention and the concerns we at MBMM have for human consumptive uses of mercury. You may be wondering, “What is this Minamata thing, and why should I worry about the mining practices of people halfway across the globe when I live thousands of miles away?” In today’s post, I’ll break down the reasons the convention came into being, and how it stands to protect human life, whether you hail from New Hamshire or New Guinea.
The Minamata Convention derives its name from a catastrophic case of mercury poisoning that began in 1956 in the Japanese town of Minamata. The tragic incident has been a modern baseline for what can and will happen without safeguards against human-caused marcury pollution. To better understand the urgency of the convention’s imperative, I’ll give a brief overview of the cycling of mercury as it stands today.
Mercury is a well-documented neurotoxin that is especially harmful to children and pregnant women. What is less known is how easily it travels and how long it can stay. Mercury pollution can make its way across the miles to accumulate in your local waterways or lurk unseen in the fish you eat.
There are three significant ways mercury moves around the world. First, it is a global commodity that passes hands through trade. Artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) represents the largest consumer of traded mercury and the single greatest contributor to mercury vapor into the atmosphere. Second, vaporized mercury from industrial use can travel great distances before being deposited through the rain into soil and waterways. To illustrate, mercury released in Mongolia can circle the planet and make its way into Western lakes and rivers. Third, once mercury enters a waterway, existing bacteria absorb it and convert it into something far more toxic: methyl mercury. Methyl mercury travels through fish, its level increasing as it moves up the food chain in a process called biomagnification.
As apex predators, humans consume top food chain species like tuna, swordfish or marlin, which contain the highest levels of methyl mercury.
This is the reasoning behind the FDA’s recommendation that pregnant women limit or avoid consumption of top predator fish. The mercury content of these fish has reached levels that threaten the development of a growing fetus.
To recap: mercury spreads via human channels through trade, atmospheric deposition, and the food chain. Stopping mercury pollution in any given sector or country isn’t enough to protect ourselves and future generations. Mercury pollution is an active threat to global health, and it requires the proactive response of every nation.
If you’d like to know more, Pure Earth has produced an excellent short video about the ways mercury travels and the health impacts it has on people. You can view it HERE.
How the Convention Works
International treaties can be complex. I’ve taken the liberty of breaking some of the language and governances for ease of understanding. Below is a snapshot of the Minamata Convention stipulations and what it means going into the future.
The Minamata Convention on Mercury is a global treaty to protect human health and the environment from the adverse effects of mercury. It entered into force on 16 August 2017, and 128 Countries have signed on with 105 ratified into law.
The Convention focuses on mercury, a naturally occurring metal that has broad uses in everyday objects and is released to the atmosphere, soil, and water from a variety of sources. Controlling the anthropogenic (man-made) releases of mercury throughout its lifecycle is the cornerstone that formed the basis of obligations under the Convention.
Minamata Convention key principles include the following:
- A ban on new mercury mines and the phase of of existing ones
- The phase-out and phase down of mercury use in a number of products and processes
- Control measures on emissions to air and on releases to land and water
- The regulation of the informal sector of the ASGM (artisanal and small-scale gold mining)
The Convention also addresses interim storage of mercury and its disposal once it becomes waste, sites contaminated by mercury, as well as health issues.