1. Are the Philippines heading for a Minamata disaster due to small-scale gold mining?
Peter W. Uitterdijk Appel
Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS)
Copenhagen, Denmark

2. Financed by World Bank Manila and Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS)

3. Camarines Norte
Zamboanga del Norte

4. Placer mining with child labor

5. Hard rock gold mining

6. Processing of gold ore
Crushing
Milling

7. Adding lime ??

8. Processing Mercury ~1 kg Lime Crushing Rod mill Sluicing
Burning amalgam
Cyanide plant
Panning

9. Consumption of mercury
In Zamboanga and Camarines 10 to 25 grams of mercury are used to extract one gramme of gold.
In mining areas in other parts of the World comparable to Zamboanga and Camarines one gram of mercury is used to recover one gram of gold.

10. Low recovery of gold (Au) and high pollution with mercury (Hg)
Samples of tailings Au
ppm Hg
Before cyanide
16.5
250
After cyanide
13.6
200
Before cyanide
14.0
120
After cyanide
13.1 73
After cyanide
0.12
110

11. Estimated release of mercury to the environment per year in the visited areas
Zamboanga del Norte, Sibutad to 360 kg
Camarines Norte, Luklukan kg
Camarines Norte, Gumaus 750 to 1500 kg
Camarines Norte, Casalugan kg
~5 tonne

12. Release of mercury
Mangrove swamp
The mercury travels downstream to the mangrove swamps fringing the Philippines. These swamps are hatching grounds for fish and shellfish which are consumed daily by most Philippinos.

13. Release of mercury from small-scale mining in the Philippines
The investigated small-scale mining communities release ~5 tonne of mercury to the environment
Dept. of Health in Manila investigated a large small-scale mining community in This community released ~140 tonne of mercury per year
The Minamata disaster in Japan in the 1960’s was caused by release of 27 tonne of mercury to Minamata Bay over a period of 34 year

14. How to reduce/eliminate release of mercury?
Teaching medical doctors, nurses and midwifes

15. Teaching small-scale miners

16. Teaching school children

17. Next generations concern
Two girls in Luklukan aged 10 and 11 came to us after our teaching in their class. The girl on the right is small-scale miner. Both of them were very concerned of whether they had high mercury contents in their body!

18. The borax method offers an inexpensive fairly easy way out of this situation

19. Blow torch

20. Borax extraction
Borax is a simple, cheap, non toxic method of gold extraction
Borax extraction is widespread in the Benguet area and has been used there for years
Borax extraction methods are being considered as alternatives to mercury in several parts of Africa