Reducing the risks of exposure to mercury—the Minamata Convention provides the road map
The dangers of exposure to anthropogenic emissions and releases from mercury are real. Mercury and its compounds, particularly methyl mercury, have, since time immemorial, been recognized as chemical substances, exposure to which leads to serious adverse neurological and other health effects on human life and the environment.
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Exposure to mercury is known to have debilitating effects on the brain and nervous system, digestive system and the kidney, among others.
Memory loss and language impairment as well as harmful effects on unborn children and infants are also known to be products of exposure to mercury.
A drop of mercury on a human hand can be irreversibly fatal and contamination of a water body can render the fish in it unsuitable for human consumption.
Indeed, the effects of exposure to the toxic properties of mercury had manifested in a tragic episode— the outbreak of the Minamata Disease, a poisoning disease of the central nervous system— in the Japanese City of Minamata, located on the Yatsushiro Sea coast in the Kumamoto Prefecture.
Methyl mercury compound, which was produced as by-product in the process of manufacturing acetaldehyde at Chisso Company Ltd. in Minamata City and Showa Denko Comppany Ltd., located upstream of Agano River, was discharged with factory effluent into the River and was accumulated in fish and shellfish.
The poisoned fish stock claimed the lives of 900 people who consumed high amounts of it and left 2,265 people still suffering from mercury poisoning.
In 2003, a global assessment of the effects of mercury and its compounds by the erstwhile Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), now the United Nations Environmental Assembly (UNEA), discovered enough evidence on the severity of the risks posed by mercury and its compounds to human health and the environment.
Yet, despite the early discovery of the dangers of mercury, the chemical is used widely in several sectors of modern world and is a common ingredient in paints, pesticides, batteries, fluorescent light bulbs and thermometers, among others.
According to official records at Ghana’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Ghana imported, on the average, 11 metric tons of mercury per annum over the past five years, with imports as at the third quarter of 2015 standing at 1.78 metric tons.
Mercury is used mostly in small-scale gold mining operations, making these miners, who use the chemical without the requisite safety precautions, vulnerable to the toxic effects of the chemical.
Furthermore, mercury-contaminated water from gold-processing activities is often discharged indiscriminately, sometimes directly into water bodies, polluting them and poisoning the fish in these water bodies.
Significantly, however, there is no doubt that the world has been sensitized enough by the dangers posed by the chemical to require the intervention of the international community to reduce exposure to the toxic substance.
Described as a global step forward is a treaty—The Minamata Convention on Mercury— initiated in 2009 under the auspices of UNEP, agreed upon at the fifth session of the Inter-governmental Negotiating Committee in January 2013 and adopted at the Conference of Plenipotentiaries in Kumamoto, Japan on October 2013.
Among the measures set out in the Convention to meet the objective are that there should be controls on mercury supply sources and trade (Article 3); mercury-added products (Article 4); manufacturing processes in which mercury compounds are used (Article 5); artisanal and small-scale gold mining (Article 7); emissions (Article 8); and releases (Article 9).
To facilitate the early implementation of the Convention, each signatory is required to undertake an initial assessment to collect information that will assist in its decision to ratify the Convention; notify the Convention in accordance with Article 7; develop a National Implementation Plan (NIP) in accordance with Article 20; and to prepare a National Action Plan (NAP) for the reduction of emissions of mercury in accordance with Article 8.
With the coming into force of the Convention, state parties are to ensure that by the year 2020, a range of mercury-containing products are banned.
These products include batteries, except for button cell batteries used in implantable medical devices; switches and relays; certain types of Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs); mercury in cathode fluorescent lamps and external electrodes fluorescent lamps; soaps and cosmetics; and certain kinds of non-electronic medical devices such as thermometers and blood pressure devices.
For the artisanal and small-scale gold mining, the Convention requires parties, under article 7, to draw up strategies to reduce the amount of mercury used by small-scale miners and, within three years of the Convention entering into force, draw up national plans to reduce and, if possible, eliminate the use of mercury in such operations.
The Convention also seeks to control mercury emissions and releases from various large industrial facilities ranging from coal-fired power stations and industrial boilers to certain kinds of smelters handling, such as zinc and gold.
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Under the Convention, parties have agreed to install the Best Available Technologies on new power plants and facilities with plans to be drawn to bring emissions down from existing ones.
The Convention, which is expected to come into force after 50 states have deposited their Instruments of Ratification, Acceptance and Accession, is designed to alert the world about the dangers of mercury exposure and pollution and to compel governments and institutions to take steps to reduce the risks of exposure.
As of October 2015, one hundred and twenty-eight (128) countries, including Ghana, had signed on to the Minamata Convention while only eighteen (18) countries, excluding Ghana, had ratified it. In other words, Ghana, which signed on to the Convention on September 24, 2014, is yet to ratify it.
It is worthy of note, however, that Ghana is being supported by the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNTAR), Friends of the Nation (FoN) — a socio-environmental advocacy Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) and the Government of Switzerland to initiate the ratification process and early implementation of the Convention.
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For its part, the Government of Ghana is required to establish the relevant regulatory framework and structures to combat the threat posed by mercury and its compounds and to ensure that existing capacities and infrastructure are strengthened for the sound management of mercury and its associated waste in order to reduce the risks of exposure.
And, as a step in that direction, Ghana is developing the Hazardous and Electronic Waste Control and Management Law, which seeks to domesticate chemical-related international conventions such as the Basel and Stockholm Conventions— a draft bill of which is expected to be introduced in Parliament soon.
The writer is an officer of the Information Services Department