Last August 16, 2017 – A ground-breaking global convention on mercury went into effect, the United Nations environment wing said, protecting millions of children and infants from possible neurological and health damage.
“Governments that are party to the Convention are now legally bound to take a range of measures to protect human health and the environment by addressing mercury throughout its lifecycle,” the UN Environment Program (UNEP) said in a statement.
The Minamata Convention commits Governments to specific measures, which include banning new mercury mines, phasing-out existing ones, regulating artisanal and small-scale gold mining, and reducing emissions and mercury use.
Since the element is indestructible, the Convention also stipulates conditions for interim storage and disposal of mercury waste.
There are now 74 parties to the Convention and 128 countries have signed it. The Convention takes its name from the most severe mercury poisoning disaster in history. In 1956, local villages suffered convulsions, psychosis, loss of consciousness and coma from eating the fish in Minamata Bay, Japan, in which industrial wastewaters had been dumped since the 1930s.
Thousands of people were certified as having directly suffered from mercury poisoning, now known as Minamata disease. Other man-made sources of mercury pollution come from the production of chlorine and some plastics, waste incineration and the use of mercury in laboratories, pharmaceuticals, preservatives, paints and jewelry.
