The Agusan River basin of eastern Mindanao, the Philippines, hosts several centres of artisanal gold mining, the most important of which, Diwalwal, is a significant gold producer in global terms. An investigation of the environmental impacts of artisanal mining in the Agusan system, with particular reference to mercury contamination, was initiated in 1995 following reports of several incidents ...

recovery of gold and other valuable metals from electronic scrap involves a complex metallurgical flow sheet and requires state-of-the-art recovery technologies that are available in large-scale, integrated smelter and refinery operations. at the end of their use, electronic and other electrical product scrap offer an important recycling potential for the secondary supply of gold and silver int...

Mercury (Hg) exposure is a public health concern due to its persistence in the environment and its high toxicity. Such toxicity has been associated with the generation of oxidative stress in occupationally exposed subjects, such as artisanal gold miners. In this study, we characterize occupational exposure to Hg by measuring blood, urine and hair levels, and investigate oxidative stress and DNA...

OBJECTIVES Gold miners use mercury to extract gold from ore adding liquid mercury to the milled gold-containing ore. This results in a mercury-gold compound, called amalgam. Miners smelt this amalgam to obtain gold, vaporizing it and finally inhaling the toxic mercury fumes. The objective was to merge and analyze data from different projects, to identify typical signs and symptoms of chronic in...

A hot, dry wind envelopes a statuesque woman as she kneels over wind-sifted trays of tinbearing pulverized ore in Uis, Namibia. In Bolivia, a nine-year old girl scrambles down a steep pit wall yet again to refill her bucket of metal-rich sand. And yet another woman stokes the fire in her wood burning stove in the Philippines, releasing the mercury from doré in a poorly ventilated kitchen; the t...