The Story of Stuff - Annie Leonard [62]
We’ve heard a lot about mercury contamination from fish in recent years. Already in my daughter’s kindergarten, these tiny kids matter-of-factly explained to one another that they couldn’t have any tuna fish sandwich because they’d already had one that week. The reason that mercury in fish is such a big deal is that when mercury emissions from factories, coal-burning power plants (which provide power for the factories), and incinerators (which burn the Stuff made in factories) sink into the sediment of lakes, rivers, and oceans, anaerobic organisms turn those emissions into methylmercury.114 This form of mercury is a far more powerful toxin than even the original mercury, and it bioaccumulates, meaning it builds up from small fish to larger and larger ones, with concentrations becoming much higher near the top of the food chain, ending with humans.
While it’s true that we metabolize and move mercury out of our bodies, the ubiquity of it means we’re re-exposing ourselves and taking in more every day. There’s also significant disparity between individuals as to how fast that clearing-out process can go—for some people it’s 30 to 70 days, but for others it can be nearly 190 days!115 The difference in clearing time appears to be written in your genes, and until the brand-new field of envirogenetics (which studies the interplay of genetics and environmental factors like diet or toxics exposure) matures, it’s hard to know what your body’s mercury timeline is.
Meanwhile, government warnings and stark statistics about mercury-contaminated fish have become so routine that we barely take note. I have to ask: why have these warnings been aimed at getting people to cease eating fish, rather than at getting the industries to stop putting mercury into our environment? Finally in February 2009, near-global consensus was reached: more than 140 countries convened by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) unanimously agreed to create an international mercury treaty. They also urged immediate action through a voluntary Global Mercury Partnership while the treaty is being finalized.116 Getting mercury out of our production processes will be hard work and it will cost money, for sure. But investments in eliminating mercury are investments well spent. UNEP estimates that every kilogram of mercury taken out of the environment can lead to up to $12,500 worth of social, environmental, and human health benefits.117
It’s high time, because about 6,000 tons of mercury are released into our environment every year.118 Some of this is a by-product of a primary process, as with coal-fired plants, chlor-alkali plants involved in papermaking, and the especially stupid practice of burning municipal waste. But much is also released consciously in the primary process—in gold mining, as I mentioned in the last chapter, as well as in the manufacture, use, and disposal of medical equipment, fluorescent and neon lighting, dental amalgams, vaccines and other pharmaceutical products, and even mascara. Yes, mascara.
Synthetic Offenders
In addition to the naturally occurring heavy metal poisons, there are the synthetic ones. While synthetic compounds have been made since cavemen experimented with mashing materials together, the large-scale development and use of synthetics has really exploded since the mid-twentieth century. Sometimes the drive to invent new materials has come from a specific requirement for the product, such as the need for paint that won’t wash off in the rain. Other times the production of synthetic compounds has been motivated by the need to find a use for the by-product of another chemical reaction or industrial process (often the refining of petroleum and natural gas). This type of material