Can International Mercury Treaty Cut Poison Risk?
UN’s Minimata Treaty aims to end mercury use within 30 years.
"Essentially, what we have managed to do is to persuade the international community to send a very clear signal—the use of mercury in industrial processes, in cosmetics, in medical equipment, is essentially over," Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, told the press in Geneva last week. "It doesn't mean that all mercury will disappear tomorrow," he added, instead predicting a 30-year phase-out period.
Mercury is a naturally occurring metal. Unfortunately, human beings have introduced it into ecosystems at unnatural levels and the consequences of exposure can be serious.
The elemental, metallic form of mercury has negative health effects primarily when it's inhaled as a vapor by users like miners, or after it's spilled or released from products that
