Mercury Air Exposure + the Amazon in Brazil
Amazonas, Brazil and the gold mining procedures that significantly pollute this particular region.
The amazon region in Brazil has been a hot spot in gold mining for many years. Unfortunately, gold mining practices release exceptionally high amounts of mercury into the air.
30–150 t of mercury is released into the air annually. This is close to 10X the amount of mercury one should consume on average.
Around 100 tons of mercury is released each year, of which 55% of it is released into the air.
The effects of over exposure to mercury usually include…
- kidney toxicity/failure
- memory loss
- neuromuscular effects
- damage to skin and eyes
But specifically, in the Brazilian amazon, people who have been inhaling this chemical experience health problems such as Hg poisoning, respiratory diseases, and even malaria.
These inhalations of mercury have caused great health defects on populations that reside in these regions. And gold mining is the perpetrator to blame.
References:
- · “Fight Against Illegal Amazon Gold Mining Intensifies.” VOA News, 17 June 2016, 9:30 PM, www.bing.com/cr?IG=118D851E568640D3B07378710B996468&CID=178D3D59FC16631B3DFC366AFD1062B0&rd=1&h=FC8Wc_8vMwf2pgBrEvTlV875UwGA8euPWyuygcrah7U&v=1&r=https%3a%2f%2fwww.voanews.com%2fa%2ffight-against-illegal-amazon-gold-mining-intensifies%2f3365688.html&p=DevEx,5062.1.
- · Akagi H. et al. (1995) Human Exposure to Mercury Due to Goldmining in the Tapajos River Basin, Amazon, Brazil: Speciation of Mercury in Human Hair, Blood and Urine. In: Porcella D.B., Huckabee J.W., Wheatley B. (eds) Mercury as a Global Pollutant. Springer, Dordrecht https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-011-0153-0_10
- · Pfeiffer, W. C., et al. “Environmental fate of mercury from gold mining in the Brazilian Amazon.” Environmental Reviews 1.1 (1993): 26–37. http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/a93-004#.Wd-dtoZrzq0
- · World Health Organization. “Mercury and health.” WHO. March 2017. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs361/en/
- · Ignotti, Eliane, et al. “Air pollution and hospital admissions for respiratory diseases in the subequatorial Amazon: a time series approach.” Cadernos de Saúde Pública, Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Apr. 2010, www.scielosp.org/scielo.php?pid=S0102-311X2010000400017&script=sci_arttext.
- · Silva, Ines A., et al. “Mercury exposure, malaria, and serum antinuclear/antinucleolar antibodies in Amazon populations in Brazil: a cross-sectional study.” Environmental Health 3.1 (2004): 11.
- · E.-D. Schulze. “Air Pollution and Forest Decline in a Spruce (Picea Abies) Forest.” Science, vol. 244, no. 4906, 1989, pp. 776–783. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1703515.
