The Devastating Cost of an Indonesian Export
Updated: Jul 2, 2022
| Asia Pacific | The New York Times |
| By Richard C. Paddock | Nov. 9, 2019 |
The NY Times reports that Ms. Yuyun Ismawati, an environmentalist and a co-founder of an Indonesian environmental group, Nexus3 Foundation, and a recipient of the 2009 Goldman Environmental Prize, estimates that illicit manufacturers in Indonesia produce more than 10,000 tons of mercury a year.
CIDAHU, Indonesia — Thousands of children with crippling birth defects. Half a million people poisoned. A toxic chemical found in the food supply. Accusations of a government cover-up and police officers on the take.
This is the legacy of Indonesia’s mercury trade, a business intertwined with the lucrative and illegal production of gold.
About a third is used in gold mining in Indonesia, she said, the rest smuggled overseas
Based on these studies, the environmental group estimates that decades of mining have poisoned 500,000 people. The mercury trade is lucrative, but the gold business it supports is far more profitable. By some estimates, Indonesia’s illicit small-scale gold miners produce as much as $5 billion a year.
An outlaw gold miner on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa examining a nugget of gold combined with toxic mercury, which is used to extract the precious metal from crushed ore. Credit...Adam Dean for The New York Times
It’s everywhere: in the rain, snow, our food, our waters, even in the human placenta! Mercury is poisoning life on Earth.
ARE YOU AWARE Artisanal miners' gold ore processing produces 20% of the world's supply of gold used in our jewellery, iPad’s, iPhone, computers, and other electronics devices and is the world's largest anthropogenic source of deadly mercury pollution overtaking coal fired plants mercury emissions in 2017?
Artisanal miners' ore processing uses mercury, a deadly neurotoxin and precursor to an even deadlier neurotoxin methylmercury @ 100 times more potent than elemental mercury to extract liberated gold from crushed or milled ore by forming an amalgam which is vaporized leaving the gold while releasing ~1,220 tonnes of mercury to our atmosphere annually .
Mercury pollution is documented in 2021 by Oxford University earth scientists to stay airborne up to one year then precipitates back to Earth in the form of rain and snow.
The morbid irony lies in the fact the same vaporized mercury is polluting the air we all breathe, contaminating our drinking water, polluting the Oceans we swim, poisoning the fish we consume especially tuna where mercury bioaccumulates the most causing health issues, and global biodiversity destruction.
But finally there's hope!
Visit our Corporate site to learn what we’re doing about artisanal miners’ ore processing and see how your impact investment capital will implement the Company scalable ESG-driven climate action initiative in Zaruma Ecuador and help mitigate future decades of ongoing human and unborn children mercury health threats, local and global biodiversity destruction, and deadly toxic mercury pollution .
An "innovation provider with a scalable ESG-driven climate action initiative designed to eliminate mercury used by artisanal ore processors and to recover more gold safely and sustainably".
Bruce A. Cosgrove, M.Sc., (Solution Chemistry) President/CEO
"Profit proudly owning sustainably reclaimed tailings gold, a globally wasted commodity"
Join Us: LinkedIn Twitter YouTube AlchemyLGCoin Meta
#impactinvesting #ImpactInvestment #amazon #MiningIndustry #innovation #Envision2030 #mining #investment #inspiration #investments #environmental #climateactionnow #savetheplanet #pollution #entrepreneurship #success #mine #startups #sustainability #health #gold #crowdfunding #goldmining #environment #success #cryptocurrency #socialmedia #motivation #miningnews #makemercuryhistory #valueinvesting #latinamerica #biodiversity #publichealth #youngpeople #womeninmining #circulareconomy #savetheplanet #humanitarian