Mercury in the Caribbean
By Dr. Bill McGraw
Boquete, Panama
The Caribbean islands of Jamaica and St. Kitts and Nevis have supported the reduction of mercury pollution in the environment. This is considerably important considering the main source of protein on the islands is seafood. Seafood consumption and mercury amalgam fillings are the two biggest sources of mercury ingestion into the human body overall. The elimination of mercury from the human body once it is chronically stored in the tissues of the kidney, liver and brain is incredibly difficult, making avoiding mercury the only practical approach to avoid mercury toxicity.
The main source of mercury pollution in Jamaica is the aluminum refining industry which contributes about 4.5 tons of mercury into the environment every year. Meanwhile St. Kitts and Nevis have 87% of their mercury coming from the disposal of consumer goods such as fluorescent light bulbs which contains at least 10 mg of mercury per bulb. St Lucia Island also reported that 70% of their mercury pollution comes from the disposal of mercury containing consumer products. Conversely, Trinidad and Tobago has 75% of their mercury output associated with the extraction and burning of fossil fuels. Added together, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica contribute about 9.3 tons of mercury into the environment every year. This would be about 8% of what the entire United States produces annually. Fortunately, the islands of Jamaica and St. Kitts and Nevis are committed to following the recommendations of the Minimata Convention, which involves limiting the use of mercury, reducing the importation of mercury containing products and installing modern pollution control devices where necessary to reduce mercury emissions.
Yet there is still more to the story here. Due to the direction of ocean currents from Central and South America, the Caribbean Islands receive pollution from other countries. During the period of 1550 to the present day about 260,000 tons of mercury was lost to the environment in Central America through the use in mining for Gold and Silver. Most of this mercury was actually imported from Europe during the colonial invasion of these areas and used in removing these precious metals from raw ores through amalgamation. Mercury has been measured in adjacent agricultural soils near gold mining areas 200 years after all mercury use in gold mining was discontinued.
Mercury released into streams during gold processing and emitted into the air during heating or “roasting” of gold-mercury amalgams gets bound and recycled in the local environment. Elemental mercury, like the type used in gold mining for amalgamation, is transformed in anaerobic soils and sediments of streams and wetlands into the more toxic organic type known as methyl mercury. This organic form of mercury then binds to the sulfur which is found in proteins which can be found in all life forms. As mercury accumulates in living tissue, it recycles from one trophic level to another and is continually recycled from one area to another. This happens as living things are continually being created and destroyed. It is estimated that it can take more than 1000 years for a mercury polluted environment to be returned to normal due to mercury’s binding, accumulating and recycling properties. Therefore, the only logical approach to mercury toxicity is to exclude its use in industry and avoidance of ingestion in the human body.
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Sources of Information Used for this Article:
https://www.purdue.edu/discoverypark/energy/assets/pdfs/cctr/outreach/Basics2-Mercury-Mar07.pdf
