Summary of supply, trade and demand information on mercury
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Content of this report
61.
This report contains the following sections: •
The “Background” section, in addition to explaining the reason for this report, briefly summarises the ongoing challenges of mercury as a global pollutant. It demonstrates how these challenges may be exacerbated by the ease with which mercury moves through the global economy, and how more detailed information on commercial transactions and final uses could help many countries and regions to better understand the role of mercury in their economies, as well as contribute to more effective policies.
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The section, “Mercury trade statistics,” presents the main sources of statistics on commercial trade of mercury and its compounds, and the organisations that maintain them; describes the commodity classifications and tariff codes used; presents the types of statistics generated; explains the value, scope and limitations of these sources; and describes a number of challenges related to understanding and exploiting the statistics.
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The section, “Global production and supply of mercury,” discusses the two key countries that still mine mercury, as well as the other major sources, including mercury recovered during decommissioning of chlor-alkali factories; “by-product” mercury recovered from mining and processing of non-ferrous metals or cleaning the mercury from natural gas; mercury recycled from wastes and mercury-containing products; and stocks of mercury accumulated over the years from various sources. This section also discusses expectations for the supply of mercury during the next 10 years.
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The section, “International trade in mercury,” presents an analysis of the available data on commercial mercury flows around the world. For each country that submits mercury trade data to the UN Statistics Division, a summary of imports and exports from 1995 to 2004, with some data for 2005, has been prepared, using the UN Comtrade database (reports for each country are available at http://www.chem.unep.ch/mercury/COMTRADE-data-per-country.htm). This section also analyzes these trade data to show commercial flows of mercury between regions, and their evolution in recent years. Despite the official sources and general quality of the trade data, this section identifies a number of inconsistencies that could be targeted and reduced if the agencies collecting the data are better aware of how these data can be used to improve our understanding of how mercury is traded and used throughout the world.
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The section, “Global demand for mercury,” discusses the basic structure of the mercury market, the evolution of mercury prices, the major uses of mercury around the world, regional demand for mercury, and presents two scenarios of evolving mercury demand during the next 10 years.
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Finally, the section, “Relevant legislation and measures affecting supply and trade,” provides examples of legislative measures that have been implemented (or are under discussion) to monitor and restrict the commercial flows of mercury. Such measures are increasingly being viewed as important efforts to complement other measures and actions, both regulatory and voluntary, aimed at reducing the circulation of mercury in the global biosphere.
62. All of these elements of the mercury supply chain help us to better understand mercury markets and movements in order to effectively respond to the key challenges posed by mercury.
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Mercury is present throughout the environment
63. Environmental mercury (Hg)1/ levels have increased considerably since the onset of the industrial age. Mercury is now present in various environmental media and food (especially fish) all over the globe at levels that adversely affect humans and wildlife. Widespread exposures occur due to humangenerated sources, and past practices have left a legacy of mercury in landfills, mine tailings, contaminated industrial and waste sites, soils and sediments. Even regions with no significant anthropogenic mercury releases, such as the Arctic, are adversely affected by the transcontinental and global transport of mercury (UNEP, 2002; Swain et al., submitted). 64. Mercury and its compounds are highly toxic to humans, ecosystems and wildlife. Initially seen as an acute and local problem, mercury pollution is now recognized as a problem of global concern. High exposures can be fatal to humans, but even relatively low doses may have serious adverse neurodevelopmental impacts. Moreover, in both fish-eating wildlife and humans, evidence is mounting in 1
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The chemical symbol for mercury is Hg.