The effects of the use of mercury by small-scale miners in Zimbabwe have reached alarming levels amid revelation that the miners that use the substance have been found to have toxic traces of mercury in their bodies.
By Our Correspondent
Mercury is a powerful neurotoxin that accumulates as methyl mercury in the environment and in the bodies of marine animals. Small-scale miners reportedly prefer using the chemical because it is affordable and easy to use, although it causes a lot of environmental and health challenges.
Bulawayo Tailjet Consultancy Services’ managing consultant, Dennis Shoko, said an environmental and health survey recently done by a team of French and Germany experts together with his organisation proved that continued use of mercury was causing catastrophic harm to the environment, animals and human beings.
“The major findings were that a lot of mercury was going into the water and affecting fish particularly up to the food chain from the omnivorous fish and the carnivorous fish,” he said.
He said a sampling exercise was done in the “hot spot” areas of Kadoma and Chakari and a control group had surveyed more than 200 km away at Chikwaka Clinic, 50 km north east of Harare, where it established that the use of mercury by gold miners was causing a serious health hazard.
“According to the health survey, the targeted group were small- scale miners directly involved in gold mining; with those working on the stamp mill and those responsible for the burning of the amalgam, which is the mixture of gold and mercury, particularly mercury intoxicated,” said Shoko.
“Even those who were not close to the mills had mercury in their blood. Again, those who have been working in the mine for more than five years and had left, had high concentration of mercury in their bodies,” he added.
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Shoko said a higher percentage of amalgam burners had elevated levels of mercury in their bodies.
“Using the medical score sum, it was possible to diagnose a chronic mercury intoxication in 70% amalgam burners, 63% of otherwise occupationally exposed population and 23% of a formerly occupationally exposed group,” said Shoko.
“About 49% of all men, 15% of all children and less than 3% of all women sampled were mercury intoxicated in the Kadoma area and 70% of amalgam burners were also mecury intoxicated. More than 30% of residents that are not amalgamators were also affected,” he said.
Shoko said 22 out of 46 children had a high calculated total mercury intake. He said mercury was a dangerous substance as it enters a person’s nervous system and causes serious health complications.
“Mercury gets into people through inhalation and through the skin while washing. When it gets into the body, it causes a lot of psychomotor problems including loss of memory, metallic taste, gingivitis, blue line at gum margins, kidney problems, muscular tremors and madness,” said Shoko.
Shoko said mercury use could also affect unborn children and could cause sterility.
“During the survey, it was discovered that the soils and the water from the five-kilometre radius of each stamp mill had very elevated levels of mercury in them,” he said.
Shoko said it was high time the country employed cleaner mercury-free technologies.
He said the government should ratify and implement the Minamata Convention on Mercury, a global treaty to protect human health and the environment from the adverse effects of mercury.
The Minamata Convention represents a global step forward to reduce exposure to mercury, a toxic chemical with significant health effects on the brain and nervous system.
The major highlights of the Minamata Convention on Mercury include a ban on new mercury mines, the phase-out of existing ones, control measures on air emissions, and the international regulation of the informal sector for artisanal and small-scale gold mining.
“We have decided that mercury should now be banned,” said Shoko. EMA spokesperson Steady Kangata said the government was working to ensure that mercury use was phased out.
“We have signed the Minamata Convention and we are waiting for the ratification and we will then take the convention to parliament. If it is agreed to, it means we might be going to a mercury-free period,” said Kangata.
“So let’s prepare for this mercury-free technology and if we don’t ratify the Minamata Convention, the problem will be that if other countries do so, we might be a dumping ground for mercury because we won’t be bound by the convention,” said Kangata.
