Phase out mercury

Even as the world is moving towards eliminating one of the most toxic heavy metals in everyday use, mercury, India unashamedly continues to freely trade and use this potent poison. Being the second largest consumer in the world, after China, we have been annually importing between 170-500 mt of elemental mercury for uses like chlor alkali production, thermometers, blood pressure instruments, batteries, dental amalgam, lighting, switches, paints, etc. Our coal-based power plants also put out at least 50-100 mt of mercury into the air each year.

Mercury is a known neurotoxin, and has both acute as well as long-term chronic health impacts at very low levels of exposure. For example, 1 gm (a thermometer contains 0.6 gm) of mercury can pollute a 20-acre lake so that the fish is unfit for eating. Serious tragedies like the one in Minamata in Japan (1953) have been caused by it. When we play with mercury on our palm, it can cross the skin-barrier and enter the blood, and pass through the blood-brain barrier as well.

Most frighteningly, it can cross the placental barrier and enter the foetus, lowering IQs and damaging nervous systems. Pregnant women, children, nurses, industrial workers, dental assistants, students using mercury in school labs, as well as those of us using dental mercury fillings are at high risk.

There is a huge body of scientific literature, which has now catalysed the UN into action. The EU, as the largest exporter of about half of the 3,000 mt of mercury used annually in the world, has decided to ban all exports by 2011 and phase out mercury use. Mercury is of great concern for fish-eaters and advisories are common in many countries. It can also spread by itself unlike, say, lead.

Surprisingly, despite the body of evidence, our environmental bureaucracy is cynically in denial. Several Indian studies have shown mercury contamination in fish in Indian rivers and workers' exposure to it. In fact, occupational safety concerns convinced five major Delhi hospitals to go mercury- free, switching to digital thermometers and aneroid blood pressure devices.

All the uses, except for fluorescent lighting, which need to be adequately recycled, have commercially viable cost-effective alternatives. In fact, items like digital thermometers and sygnomanometers provide opportunities for India to be a world supplier, rather than be a problem consumer of mercury. We alone consume over 10,00,000 thermometers a year and the export potential is massive, with global demand rising. The writing is clearly on the wall. Mercury, like lead earlier, is slated for a global phase- out. India can continue to be part of the problem, or see the opportunities in providing safer solutions to the world.