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Environment & Energy

eppur_se_muova

(41,495 posts)

1. The gold "miners" just boil off the mercury with a blowtorch ...

Reply to Judi Lynn (Original post)

Wed Sep 13, 2017, 04:13 PM

Sep 2017

so of course every bit of it ends up in the water cycle.

Apparently, most people think the mercury "burns off". Actually it mostly evaporates. The people doing this work are going to absorb large amounts of mercury through the skin, as well as by inhaling the vapor. Gold fever can prove pretty lethal.

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Inhabitants of east Colombia province have 60 times more than average mercury in body [View all] Judi Lynn Sep 2017 OP

The gold "miners" just boil off the mercury with a blowtorch ... eppur_se_muova Sep 2017 #1

Thank you for this information. n/t Judi Lynn Sep 2017 #2