NEW DELHI: After a week of talks, delegates from 140 countries agreed to the world's first treaty on limiting use of mercury at Geneva, Switzerland.
"A treaty to rid the world of a notorious health-hazardous metal was agreed to on the morning of January 19," UN Environment Programme (UNEP) spokesperson Nick Nuttall told Reuters.
The treaty will be actually signed in October this year at Minamata, Japan where over 10,000 people died as a result of mercury poisoning between 1932 and 1968. Mercury was being released in the Minamata Bay from a chemical factory nearby.
"The new treaty aims to reduce the production and the use of mercury, especially in the production of products and in industrial processes," the Swiss foreign ministry said in a statement.
Mercury is found in products ranging from electrical switches, thermometers and light-bulbs, to amalgam dental fillings and even facial creams. Large amounts of the heavy metal are released from small-scale gold mining, coal-burning power plants, metal smelters and cement production.
A new report by the UNEP released just before talks began in Geneva said that nearly 2,000 tons of mercury is emitted globally into the air from human activities every year. Much of this toxic substance eventually becomes deposited on vegetation, in the soil, and in oceans, lakes and rivers.
The deputy head of UNEP's Chemical Branch said this week that much human exposure to mercury is through the consumption of contaminated fish. Mercury affects the brain and nervous system. Pregnant women who ingest mercury can pass the toxic effects to their unborn children. Serious mercury poisoning affects the body's immune system and can lead to problems including psychological disorders, loss of teeth and problems with the digestive, cardiovascular and respiratory tracts.
The Minamata Convention, as the treaty will be known after it is signed by the agreeing countries formally, will set rules limiting the supply of and trade in mercury and the use of mercury in products and industrial processes. It will also lay down measures to reduce emissions from artisanal and small-scale gold mining, as also from power plants and metals production facilities.
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