23 Statistics On Toxic Chemicals In Gold Mining
Here are 23 facts and statistics about the use of mercury and cyanide in gold mining and how these toxic chemicals are impacting the environment and public health.
ID: Hand holding hold necklace (Pradit_Ph, Getty images)
Today I’m talking about gold.
Spoiler alert: there’s nothing “good” about it.
Did you know toxic chemicals, like mercury, are used to retrieve the metal we deem precious and pure?
We throw the idiom “good as gold” around so casually, but the truth is, that gold has no integrity.
It is not honest or traceable.
Gold mining is dirty, shameless and cruel.
It's dangerous work with very few safety regulations.
The worst part is, in 2010, the United Nations estimated there were 1-2 million children working in artisanal gold mines, including children as young as 3 years old.
12 years on and child labour in mining is increasing and data in many countries is still non-existent.
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I want to raise awareness of this important topic, so I’m sharing 23 statistics about the environmental impact of the toxic chemicals used in gold mining.
Before I get to the statistics, I’m going to explain why mercury and cyanide are used in mining and the devastating health effects this has on wildlife and people living nearby.
If you’d like to help spread the word too, you are welcome to share my graphics on social media. If you tag me, I’ll share your post too!
COMING UP
What is artisanal small-scale gold mining (ASGM)?
What is industrial large-scale mining (LSM)?
Why do gold miners use mercury?
What are the health impacts of mercury?
Why do gold miners use cyanide?
What are the health impacts of cyanide?
23 statistics on toxic chemicals in gold mining
1. What is artisanal small-scale gold mining?
According to the United Nations, artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASM) is defined as “gold mining conducted by individual miners or small enterprises with limited capital investment and production.” 90% of gold is estimated to be extracted by small-scale miners.
In developing countries, there are approximately 15 million people involved in ASM, including 3 million women and children. Often, they are low skilled workers just trying to support their families.
2. What is industrial large-scale mining?
Large-scale mining (LSM) refers to gold mining operations from industrialised, corporate mining companies.
3. Why do gold miners use mercury?
In mines, mercury is used to recover tiny pieces of gold that are mixed in with soil and sediments. Mercury and gold combine together to form an amalgam. The gold is separated by heating the mercury until it evaporates.
Mercury is an inexpensive and easy way to collect gold so is popular amongst small-scale miners.
4. What are the health impacts of mercury on miners?
The biggest risk to small-scale miners using toxic chemicals to extract gold is inhaling mercury fumes.
Extreme contamination can lead to organ failure and death; if a woman is pregnant, her unborn baby can be exposed and at risk of birth defects and brain damage. Symptoms of mercury poisoning can happen over weeks or months.
Airborne mercury can spread long distances and contaminate soil and water. The most common cause of mercury poisoning is seafood. This diagram shows how gold mining plays a part:
5. Why do gold miners use cyanide?
Liquid cyanide easily combines with metals which makes it useful in gold mining. It separates the gold from the ore in a process called cyanidation.
The highly toxic chemical is mainly used by large-scale mines which are owned by corporations. This is because a large investment is needed alongside technical training to ensure it is handled safely.
Due to the pressure to move away from mercury, the use of cyanide is increasing in small-scale mines. This practice is risky because artisanal gold miners usually do not have the knowledge or the training to use cyanide in a safe or responsible way.
In some developing countries, miners work with bare hands and feet. If the pH of the cyanide solution is not correct, miners can inhale cyanide gas.
6. What are the health impacts of cyanide?
Cyanide is a highly toxic chemical that is rapidly acting and potentially deadly at low concentrations.
Low acute exposure: headaches, vomiting, rapid heart rate and skin or eye irritation.
High acute exposure: seizures, loss of consciousness, low blood pressure, lung injury, coma, death.
Low chronic (regular) exposure: nervous system damage, enlarged thyroid gland, chest pain, breathing difficulties, headaches, changes in taste and vision, bizarre behaviour, birth defects and developmental issues in children.
The large scale mining industry claims cyanide is safer because, unlike mercury, it breaks down into other substances that are less toxic and it does not bioaccumulate in the body.
The problem is, fish and other aquatic organisms are highly sensitive to the substances cyanide can break down into.
Despite all the knowledge on how to use cyanide in mining safely, there have been many cyanide-related environmental disasters where the environment and biodiversity paid the price.
References: EU, Earthworks, R Eisler, Artisanal Gold
23 statistics about the impact of mercury and cyanide in gold mining
Artisanal small scale gold mining is the largest source of mercury pollution on earth. It is estimated that 100 million people are affected. (G Prescott, 2022)
2. Mercury used in gold mining contaminates water and air and persists in the environment forever. Levels of mercury in the atmosphere are 500% higher than natural levels and 200% higher in the oceans. (EEA, 2018)
3. Mercury pollution is a major problem for wildlife. It is a bioaccumulative toxin that is absorbed by fish and birds, contaminating the food chains of animals and humans.
4. Mercury is one of the World Health Organisations’ top ten chemicals of major public health concern. The main source of contamination is diet.
5. Pollution knows no borders. It travels from low-income gold mining countries where workers are being poisoned to consumers in high-income countries through air, water, food and the products we buy. (Pure Earth, 2019)
6. Methylmercury passes through the placenta and can impact a baby’s growing brain. In Europe, it is estimated that more than 1.8 million children are born each year with mercury levels above recommended safe limits. (European Environment Agency)
7. 18,000 children work in gold mines in the Philippines. Most are between 11 and 17 years old, but younger children can be found.
8. A study by a Philippine NGO found that 14% of girls and boys who live in mining areas work in them. This type of work is dangerous and comes under the worst types of child labour.
“One of the children working with mercury was 13-year-old Ruth. She told Human Rights Watch that she processes gold to ensure her family can buy food. She started working at the age of 9 and also dropped out of school at that age…. Ruth had not heard about the harmful effects of mercury. Most child labourers have limited, and sometimes false, information about mercury, and usually do not know its risks or how to protect themselves properly from this toxic metal. Some cover their mouths with their shirts when burning the amalgam—a measure that does not reduce the risk.” - Human Rights Watch.
9. An estimated 1 million kilograms of mercury are released into the environment from artisanal small scale gold mining every year. This is more than coal mining, cement production and large scale gold mining combined. (LJ Esdaile, 2018)
10. Four countries are the main contributors to mercury emissions: Bolivia (120 tonnes/year), Brazil (105 tonnes/year), China (100 tonnes/year), Burkina Faso (35 tonnes/year). (Mercury Watch, 2017)
11. 68.8% of Indigenous women in two Bolivian communities were found with high enough levels of mercury in their bodies to have negative effects on an unborn child. None of the women involved participated in any mining but ate a diet of fish and bananas. (David Evers, 2021)
12. Women living in gold mining regions in Brazil and Venezuela had mercury levels that were 5 times higher than safe levels from consumption of local, mercury-contaminated fish.
13. In the Colombian gold mining region of Iquira, where no mercury is used for gold mining and the participants did not eat fish, the average level of mercury in their bodies was well below any level of concern.
14. 1 billion people rely on seafood as their main source of protein. Contamination with methylmercury is widespread, particularly among predatory fish like tuna and mackerel.
15. In 2000, a moving truck dribbled Mercury through 3 villages in Peru where locals, including pregnant women and children, scooped up the mysterious silver liquid and took it home. 20 years on, these communities are still feeling the effects and dying of illnesses caused by mercury poisoning.
16. It has been estimated that over 3000 tons of mercury have been dumped into rivers in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest over the last 20 years (Amazon Aid)
17. If small-scale miners use both mercury and cyanide to extract as much gold as they can, the mercury-cyanide complex can travel much further on its own, resulting in higher levels of toxic mercury in fish
(Environmental Protection Agency).
18. In 1995, the second-largest gold mine in South America accidentally released 800 million gallons of cyanide-laced sediment into the Essequibo River. Dead animals floated along the contaminated river that natives relied on for drinking water and fishing.
19. In 2000, a gold mine in Romania spilt 100,000 cubic meters of wastewater contaminated with cyanide into one of the largest rivers in Hungary. In some parts of the river Tisza, the cyanide concentration was 100 times the limit for drinking water.
20. A major environmental disaster went underreported in 2022 when a pipe carrying a cyanide solution at a gold mine in Turkey burst. 706 cubic feet of the toxic solution went into the Karusu river.
21. For each new gold ring produced, large-scale gold mining generates over 20 tons of waste contaminated with cyanide.
22. On average, only 0.00001% of mined ore is refined into gold. The remaining 99.9999% is waste - most of which is highly toxic
23. Gold mining leads to high quantities of heavy metal pollution, including lead, arsenic, cadmium and nickel. Heavy metal laden waste contaminates ecosystems and endangers the health of local communities, particularly children.
(Fashola, 2016)
Feel free to share my images on social media so we spread the word about the toxic chemicals and heavy metals in gold mining (don’t forget to tag me so I can share your post too!)
Sources and further reading:
Mercury Exposure and Health Impacts among Individuals in the ASGM Community, Gibb, 2014
Formalizing Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining, G.W Prescott 2022
EEA Report No 11/2018 2018
Evers et al. (2014, p. 10–11).
Pollution Knows No Borders, Pure Earth (PDF, 2019)
Mercury: a persistent threat to the environment and people's health 2018
The Mercury Problem in Artisanal and Small‐Scale Gold Mining, LJ Esdaile, 2018
Average Mercury Released from AGSM, Mercury Watch, 2017
High Mercury Levels in Indigenous Latin American Women, 2021
Global Trends In Artisanal And Small-Scale Mining, PDF
A State-of-the-Science Review of Mercury Biomarkers in Human Populations Worldwide between 2000 and 2018 Basu et al, 2018
Environmental Impact of Illicit Mining, 2014
Conservation International: Lightening The Lode - A Guide to Responsible Large Scale Mining (PDF, 2000)
Greenpeace archive - Cyanide spill in Romania 2000
Cyanide spill in Turkey - 2022
The World Counts: The Environmental Effects Of Gold Mining (2022)
Heavy Metal Pollution from Gold Mines: Environmental Effects and Bacterial Strategies for Resistance, (Fashola et al, 2016)