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Important Report! Hot Topic!

One of every 20 cans of "white," or albacore, tuna should be recalled as unsafe for human consumption, according to MPP independent testing (see press release and testing report). Mercury exposure can cause severe learning disabilities and other neurodevelopmental problems in babies and young children. Recent Centers for Disease Control findings indicate that 8 percent of woman of childbearing age in the US have unsafe mercury levels, translating into over 300,000 babies born at risk each year. MPP's testing found that mercury levels in Albacore "white "canned tuna averaged over 0.5 ppm mercury. Recently obtained test results from the Food and Drug Administration confirm MPP's findings and show "white" canned tuna has three times the mercury levels as the "light" tuna. An earlier MPP report reveals that FDA's seafood mercury monitoring program severely lacks in thoroughness, depth and degree.

One That Got Away (372K)

Read the Press Release

Model Mercury Legislation

See model dental legislation drafted by the Mercury Policy Project.

See model mercury legislation drafted by the Mercury Policy Project that is reflected in most recent state and federal legislation on mercury.

Exposure to Mercury

We are exposed to mercury through the food we eat, primarily freshwater and marine fish. 40 states warn residents to restrict their consumption of certain fish due to mercury contamination. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, about 7 million women and children are eating mercury-contaminated fish at or above the level it considers safe.

Learn more about this issue, actions being taken to address the risk of mercury exposure, and advocacy efforts to eliminate human exposure to mercury.

Mercury Pollution

The majority of the mercury entering lakes, streams, rivers, and oceans comes from the atmosphere. Eight-five percent of all mercury pollution in the U.S. is released by power plants burning coal and municipal and medical waste incinerators burning mercury tainted trash.

Learn more about the sources of mercury, policies in place to curb releases, and advocacy strategies pushing toward virtual elimination of mercury releases in 10 years.

In order to view the documents in PDF format, you will need Adobe Acrobat installed on your computer

Mercury in Commerce, Contaminating our Food

This week the European Commission is meeting to discuss the commercial uses of mercury that can lead to substantial environmental releases and subsequent contamination of the food supply. A detailed document entitled Mercury Flows in Europe and the World describes the global trade in mercury, including the dominant role of European nations in supplying the mercury and the disproportionate use of mercury in the developing world.

EU mercury is supplied largely from its chemical industry, which is phasing out mercury-based production at its chlor-alkali manufacturing plants. Each of these plants holds several hundred tons of mercury, and large quantities of mercury come into the market place as these sources are decommissioned. A mercury mine in Spain produces additional virgin mercury for the global marketplace.

Despite mercury’s toxicity and the risks it poses to human health and the environment, mercury is traded from the EU with no restrictions as to its subsequent uses. Consequently, while the last 15-20 years have shown a significant reduction of mercury use in the OECD countries, mercury consumption in many developing countries, especially South and East Asia and Central and South America is continuing and sometimes growing.

This is leading to a number of alarming outcomes described in the report, such as:

Circle of poison: The mercury trade is global and fluid. Mercury can be recovered from a Western European mercury chlor-alkali plant, sold to a Spanish trading company, shipped to Germany for conversion into mercuric oxide, sold to mainland China for the manufacture of button-cell batteries, and the batteries exported to Hong Kong for incorporation into mass-produced watches for export back to the EU and the US. Thus, no country can take unilateral action to eliminate mercury from its environment.

Inequities between developed and less developed countries: Low prices enshrine and protect existing dangerous uses of mercury in the less developed world, discouraging innovation that would certainly take place to reduce mercury consumption if the chemical were more expensive. For example, mercury is used in small scale, artisanal gold mining in Africa and South/Central America in ways that result in enormously dangerous human and environmental exposures. It is also used in products and processes prohibited or restricted in the EU.

The environmental NGO community has concluded from this and other reports that coordinated global mercury restrictions are urgently required.

Full report at: http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/chemicals/mercury/report.pdf

Patterns of global and EU mercury consumption.