Moving away from mercury use and treating toxicity a
business for development project for small-scale gold
miners in the Mara mining district, northern Tanzania
Olof Taromi Sandstrm, Joanna Lindahl
Geological Survey of Sweden, Box 670, SE-751 28 Uppsala, Sweden
Philip Ebbersten, Peter Hjorth
Kilimanjaro Gold AB, Brahegatan 29, SE-114 37 Stockholm, Sweden
Ragnar Klingberg
CTI Science, Karolinska Science Park, Fogdevreten 2, SE-171 65 Stockholm, Sweden
Abstract. Artisanal and small-scale gold miners (ASGM)
in the Mara mining district, northern Tanzania, use
mercury as a vital part of the beneficiation and extracting
process. The use of mercury leads to environmental
impacts in the area and many miners are experiencing
health problems. As a part of the company Kilimanjaro
Golds CSR-program and overall strategy, a pilot project
on using mobile concentrator plants for gold extraction is
to be tested. Parallel to this, the medical company CTI
Science is to introduce a new mercury antidote. The plan
is to treat miners and evaluate the effect of treatment
combined with non-mercury extraction methods.
Keywords: Small-scale mining, mercury, gold extraction,
business for development, environment, Tanzania
1 Introduction
Artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) is
vibrant in Tanzania. Around 800.000 people of which
50.000 may be children work every day with
extracting minerals (Humans Rights Watch 2013). The
most commonly used extraction process among ASGM
miners is mercury amalgamation because its simple,
efficient and inexpensive (Spiegel and Veiga 2010).
Mercury-usage leads to negative environmental and
health impacts which are of great concern for Tanzania
and other developing countries with ASGM activity.
This article is about a project that aim at reducing
mercury use by introducing a non-mercury extraction
method, and at the same time treat intoxicated miners in
an ASGM region in Tanzania.
2 Mercury in gold mining
During gold extraction, miners normally mix mineral
concentrates and mercury with their bare hands before
they heat the gold-mercury amalgam resulting in
metallic mercury evaporation. A large part of the
mercury vapour will be inhaled directly by the miners,
and the other part will eventually precipitate and
gradually be washed into local water ways.
For every 1 gram of extracted gold - up to 2 grams of
mercury is used, and in Tanzania alone the annual
mercury emission from ASGM communities is estimated
to 45 tonnes (Spiegel and Veiga 2010). Globally the
annual emission from ASGM is 727 tonnes, which
accounts for 35% of the total anthropogenic contribution
(UNEP 2013). It is vital that the use of mercury is
phased out and replaced by less hazardous methods such
as use of mobile concentrator plants (Mwanga 2010) and
replacement or mercury by borax (Appel and Leonico
2013). Introducing methods and techniques for recycling
mercury (Jnsson et al. 2009, 2013) is also crucial.
3 Hazardous effects of mercury
The major disadvantage of using amalgamation is that
mercury is toxic and stays in the environment for a long
time. Every tonne of mercury released by the ASGM
sector today will harm generations to come. The toxic
effects depend on the chemical form and the route of
exposure. In general, exposure to mercury through
inhalation or ingestion may pose serious health impacts
such as brain and neurological damages, memory loss,
skin rashes, emotional changes, tremors, kidney, heart,
vision and respiratory problems, deformation of fetus
and in worst case even death. Children are particularly
sensitive to mercury. Once mercury is in the body, the
half-life is 27 years if untreated,
For ASGM miners the potential for intoxication of
metallic mercury is very high since most of the mercury
used in the amalgamation process is emitted as gases. Of
the inhaled metallic mercury, around 90% is taken up by
the respiratory system.
People living close to, or downstream of, ASGM
villages may also be intoxicated by methyl mercury
(a.k.a. organic mercury), which is the most toxic form.
When metallic mercury enters the aqueous environment,
it will fully or partially be transformed into methyl
mercury by bacteria. The organic version of mercury has
the ability to be absorbed by organisms and magnify in
concentration along food chains. This results in serious
danger for people eating contaminated fish and wildlife.
4 Project proposal
This project aims to move ASGM miners in the Mara
mining district away from mercury use, and removing
the mercury retained in their brains and bodies using a
novel mercury antidote. The project will provide the
stakeholders Kilimanjaro Gold, CTI Science, the
Swedish Geological Survey, medical and government
institutions with valuable information on how the
mercury issue could be handled in an efficient manner.
The project consists of two parts that will be
integrated with one another. When interacting with
ASGM miners for dealing with gold-ores, it will be
effective to at the same time inform about the dangers of
mercury, and provide the antidote as treatment.
4.1 Gold extraction in a mobile processing
plant
The first part of the project involves introducing a
possibility for gold extraction without mercury in the
Mara mining district. The company Kilimanjaro Gold
will acquire and run a mobile processing plant to which
local ASGM miners can sell their ore and thus remove
the need for mercury extraction.
There are mobile plants that process up to 140 tons of
ore per day with a 95% recovery of gold, which is more
beneficial than the average 20-40% recovery rate,
achieved with mercury amalgamation. The plants are
operated with a ball mill, cyanide solution, agitation and
active carbon absorption. The final stage is elution. The
body of the plant is made of steel and fits on a truck.
The weight of the ore and average gold grades will
be determined through assay testing by the company
onsite and the ASGM miners will be paid directly. The
miners will make the same amount of money, or more,
as if processing themselves.
If the project is successful, mercury use in the Mara
region can be decreased and with time fully abolished.
The company Kilimanjaro Gold will operate through its
Tanzanian subsidiary Uhuru Resouces Ltd, which will
be the contractual party that takes responsibility to work
with the Swedish Geological Survey and CTI Science in
order to implement the project in Mara. The company
has a long term view on community relations and
understands that a part of the companys success
depends on how well the company can integrate with
the surrounding community. As the company will be
working in the region for a long time, this will be an
integral part of their community relations program.
4.2 Treating mercury affected miners with an
antidote
The second component of the project is to provide a
mercury antidote to people on the Mara mine license
area. The antidote, NBMI, will be provided by the
medical company CTI Science. NBMI has Orphan Drug
Status in EU and USA for the indication Mercury
Toxcity. A Phase II efficacy study in intoxicated
humans will be done in 2015 and the drug is expected to
become available for use in the third world 2016. It
could start being used through Compassionate use
programs already in the fall of 2014 after the Phase I
safety study that is currently being performed in
Sweden. There are interests in collaboration from
occupational medicine departments at universities in
both Munich (Germany) and Dar es Salaam.
The project aims to have a health care professional
stationed at the entrance of the Mara license area and
where the ASGM miners sell their ore. In this way
NBMI can efficiently be distributed and a dialogue be
held. The plan is also to let professionals travel around
in the region and inform local people of the opportunity.
5 Expected outcomes
If the project is successfully implemented, it is expected
to achieve several positive outcomes. The first, and most
important one, is health and environmental benefits by
not using mercury. By removing the amalgamation
process, the ASGM miners save time and can mine more
efficiently. Women and children are frequently involved
in the amalgamation process, and thus a side effect by
removing it may be to free children and women to
engage in other activities such as education and farming.
Gold extraction in a mobile processing plant is
expected to yield more money to all parties due to a
better recovery rate and more efficient extraction. The
project aims at achieving a win-win situation for all
stakeholders, and an economically self-sustaining case
can be scaled up by re-investing revenues. Another
positive effect of the project is that the extracted ore will
be accounted and therefore contribute to the Tanzanian
government through royalties paid by Kilimanjaro Gold.
If successful, the project idea could multiply globally
where millions of people work or live in ASGM
communities. An estimated number is that more than 80
million people worldwide have been involved with
mercury in gold mining and thus have elevated levels in
their bodies. CTI Science will develop a strategy on how
to handle a coming potentially large distribution.
Acknowledgements
Through the MeetingPoints Mining project, the Swedish
Geological Survey is facilitating partnerships and
networks in the mineral sector in sub-Saharan Africa.
This initiative is a part of the project and is funded by
the Swedish International Development Cooperation
Agency (Sida).
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