Small-scale gold miners burn off mercury to purify their find, releasing it straight into the air. This single practice is now the world’s largest source of mercury pollution.
📌 Must Know
Key Facts
- Gold MiningArtisanal and small-scale gold mining is the world’s largest source of anthropogenic mercury emissions, over 35% of the global total.
- Coal PlantsCoal-based thermal power plants also cause mercury pollution. Coal itself contains trace mercury, released into the air when burned.
- No Safe LevelThere is no known safe level of exposure to mercury. It is a cumulative neurotoxin, damaging the nervous system even at low doses.
- Health RiskMercury exposure can damage the nervous system, kidneys, and lungs, and is especially harmful to developing fetuses and young children.
💡 Good to Know
The Minamata Convention
- In artisanal gold mining, miners mix mercury with ore, forming an amalgam. Heating it evaporates the mercury, leaving pure gold behind, and releasing mercury vapour into the air.
- The Minamata Convention on Mercury, adopted in 2013 and named after Japan’s Minamata disease tragedy, is the main global treaty on mercury. It covers the full life cycle, from mining and trade to emissions and waste.
- India ratified the Minamata Convention in 2018, with negotiated flexibility on some mercury-based product and process phase-out deadlines, extended to 2025 in specific cases.
- The Convention bans new mercury mines and sets phase-out schedules for existing ones and for mercury-added products.
📝 Exam Point of View
UPSC CSP 2023: Count the Correct Statements
- UPSC 2023Asked as: “Consider the following statements regarding mercury pollution. How many of the above statements are correct?” UPSC CSP 2023, GS Paper I. Answer: all three.
- The FormatUPSC often tests this topic through “how many are correct” questions with three or four statements. That rewards knowing every fact solidly, not just recognising one.
- The TrapDon’t assume gold mining and coal plants are mutually exclusive sources. Both are real, large sources at the same time, just at different scales.
✅ Test Yourself
🌟 Great to Know
Beyond the Basics
- Minamata disease, the illness the Convention is named after, came from industrial wastewater dumped into Japan’s Minamata Bay in the mid-20th century. It poisoned fish that local communities relied on.
- Mercury also bioaccumulates up the food chain. Predatory fish like tuna and swordfish carry far higher mercury levels than the water they swim in. That is why pregnant women are often advised to limit their intake.
- Coal-fired power plants remain a major mercury source globally, even though gold mining releases more in total. That’s because coal is used at such a massive scale worldwide.
- Reducing mercury exposure requires action on multiple fronts at once: cleaner artisanal mining techniques, stricter power-plant emissions controls, and international treaty commitments like Minamata.
📰 Current Affairs
India to Host Mercury’s Biggest Global Conference (2026)
- The EventIndia will host the 17th International Conference on Mercury as a Global Pollutant (ICMGP-17), the world’s largest mercury-science gathering, at Hyderabad’s IIT-H Convention Centre in 2026. (Source: ICMGP 2026)
- First for the RegionThis is the first time the conference has been held in Southeast Asia in its history, marking a shift toward Global South participation on mercury policy. (Source: SDG Knowledge Hub)
- The ThemeThe conference theme is “Reaching Ten Years of Enforcement of the Minamata Convention,” marking a decade since the treaty’s enforcement began. (Source: ICMGP 2026)
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