Can large-scale technology raise small-miner income and reduce mercury? Prospects for female waste-rock collectors selling ore to non-mercury processing plants

The study focuses on an alternative to the miners processing ore themselves; instead small miners sell their ore to plants employing larger-scale, mercury-free technologies that also raise gold yields.  Taking an interesting lens the researchers assessed the ore-selling preferences of female waste-rock collectors (jancheras) in Ecuador, using a discrete-choice experiment.