International Industrial Ecology Day 2021

In 2017, the Minamata Convention entered into force, in which the primary mining of mercury and the trade of mercury-containing products were regulated. Despite being one of the most significant emission sources of mercury (Hg), artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) was not banned. This may cause improper or illegal mercury trade to the ASGM sector, which hinders global mercury management. Although monitoring of global mercury trade is enforced, a method for detecting potentially improper mercury trade to ASGM does not exist. Therefore, the objective of this study is to detect the improper Hg trade flow to the countries that have ASGM activities.
We extracted trade data for 231 countries and regions on 5,000 categories of products using the BACI database from 1995~2015, and surveyed the domestic Hg production and ASGM Hg use in countries/regions that have ASGM activities. Thereafter we calculated the Hg flow in global trade and the apparent Hg consumption, then compared the apparent Hg consumption with the ASGM Hg use. When the ASGM Hg use is higher than the apparent Hg consumption, improper Hg trade possibly occurred. Thus, we analyzed several countries for a higher possibility of improper Hg flow. To determine the categories of Hg-containing products that are possibly related to ASGM activities, we further studied the Hg trade flow among global trade.
Central and South America and Africa showed larger accumulated ASGM Hg use than the accumulated apparent Hg consumption, which indicates possible improper Hg flow that has not been officially recorded. For Asia, although the ratio of the ASGM Hg use has decreased since the peak in 2015, apparent Hg consumption is significantly increasing, and further investigations into Hg consumption are needed.