Health Risks

Mercury is usually released into the environment by manufactories as emissions or waste. Eventually this mercury gets into the water bodies and then is converted by bacteria living in the sediment into methyl mercury. Methyl mercury can be ingested by smaller aquatic plants and animals. The danger here is that through biomagnification animals higher in the food chain will have larger concentrations of methyl mercury in their systems. This is dangerous especially for large fish, birds, and humans. Additionally, through bioaccumulation small amounts of consumed toxins can build up within one’s system over time, leading to mercury poisoning. The most common form of mercury poisoning comes from methyl mercury. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, almost everyone in the world has trace amounts of methyl mercury in their bodies because of its abundance in our environment, but in larger concentrations, it can be dangerous.

For infants and children:

• Impaired neurological development
• Impaired cognitive thinking, memory, attention, and language skills
• Impaired fine motor and spatial visual skills

For adults:

• "pins and needles” in the hands, feet, and around the mouth
• impairment of the peripheral vision
• lack of coordination of movements
• impairment of speech and hearing
• muscle weakness

Extreme cases of high mercury poisoning:^[3]

• Kidney and respiratory failure
• Death

Case Studies

Current Remediation Techniques

nixA

References

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1. Ref 1
2. Ref 2
3. Ref 3