Can International Mercury Treaty Cut Poison Risk?
Much of the world agrees that mercury contamination is a major public and environmental health concern, and nearly a hundred nations have proven it by signing the United Nations' Minamata Convention on Mercury. But experts say the devil may lie in the details and add that reducing mercury use and environmental levels won't be a quick process.
"Essentially, what we have managed to do is to persuade the international community to send a very clear signal—the use of mercury in industrial processes, in cosmetics, in medical equipment, is essentially over," Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, told the press in Geneva last week. "It doesn't mean that all mercury will disappear tomorrow," he added, instead predicting a 30-year phase-out period.
Mercury is a naturally occurring metal. Unfortunately, human beings have introduced it into ecosystems at unnatural levels and the consequences of exposure can be serious.
The elemental, metallic form of mercury has negative health effects primarily when it's inhaled as a vapor by users like miners, or after it's spilled or released from products that contain this form. Other forms of mercury are not only poisonous but more persistent.
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