Resources

Review materials and watch video recording from the virtual event to learn more about the technical document on mercury-containing tailings management in ASGM and discover the experience of Zimbabwe and Colombia with ASGM tailings management. 

Since 2018, The Impact Facility has been looking for practical ways to manage, mitigate an eliminate mercury use in the ASGM space. This report presents work carried out in mercury use sensitisation, with more than a dozen artisanal mining groups in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, reflecting on successes, challenges and failures experienced along the way

This study aims to detect the existence of illegal intercountry mercury trade under the social mercury phase-out movement, focusing on discrepancies in each country’s trade statistics. 

This study discusses a method to detect inconsistencies in data on global mercury trade, and calculated the gap between the demand and supply of mercury to the artisanal and small-scale gold mining sector (i.e., the largest source of Hg emissions globally) in 39 countries across four regions. 

This is the final technical background document created for the Conference of the Parties to the Minamata Convention on Mercury Fifth meeting. 

This document has been prepared by the Artisanal Gold Council to provide basic practical guidance for the environmentally sound storage, handling, and transport of liquid mercury and mercury wastes in Peru, particularly wastes consisting of used elemental mercury and mercury contaminated materials.

While various past development efforts have sought to reduce mercury-related problems, we conclude that sustainable development should seek to intertwine knowledge-sharing on environmental goals with concrete ways of improving economic well-being. We demonstrate how such models of knowledge-sharing can help to catalyze local innovation, technology-sharing and community organization. This paper discusses how this knowledge can be applied by governments to create capacity building policies as well as regulations that support sustained improvement in mining standards. 

The guidelines provide basic practical guidance for the environmentally sound storage, handling, and transport of liquid mercury and mercury wastes in Peru, particularly wastes consisting of used elemental mercury and mercury contaminated materials. The guidance is adapted to the needs of Peru, which aims to progressively eliminate mercury use in artisanal and small-scale mining, and has committed to manage mercury wastes in compliance with the Minamata and Basel conventions. 

Ratification of the Minamata Convention on Mercury has led to the establishment of Peruvian regulations limiting mercury concentrations in air to 2000 ng/m3 over a 24-hr measurement period. As a result, three communities in Madre de Dios, Peru were mapped during October 2017 to determine Hg⁰ vapor concentrations in the air.

The book “Stories and Drawings Expedition Mercury” presents 11 stories and 11 drawings about the impacts of mercury on mining communities and how the protagonists address this problem to stop using mercury. The works were made by students from 5 secondary schools in Arequipa, Piura, and Puno regions in Peru as part of the Expedition Mercury story and drawing contest held in 2024 by the planetGOLD Peru project.