Mercury has actively entered our food chain in the past few decades. We eat our fish, we take in mercury (be it a fresh salt water fish or from our own poultry counter). Many of our domestic products contain mercury in varying compositions. Mercury can be found in many a things found in public places like our offices, schools, and even at our dentist.
A bit about mercury:
Mercury is a metal by nature and occurs in any of the mediums available on earth viz. earth, water and air. The common forms of mercury’s existence are:
Free-form mercury: This is the elemental form. It does not react with any of the compounds.
Inorganic Compounds
Organic Compounds
Sources of Mercury: Mercury finds its origins in the earth’s crust. Mercury is indestructible i.e. we cannot artificially destroy the element. Quicksilver, or the pure form of mercury stays in then liquid state at room temperature. It is a volatile metal. Mercury volatizes into mercury vapors. Mercury has been conventionally used to make equipments which involve response to thermal variations such as thermometers, light bulbs and thermal switches.
Mercury in metallurgy: Mercury is metallurgically found in industrial rocks including the common coal. Combustion of coal releases vapor-form mercury in the atmosphere. Power plants powered by coal are the largest cause of mercurial emissions in the United States. Such emissions account for 40 percent of the total human-caused mercury emissions. The US Environmental Protection Agency estimates that one-fourth of the human-caused mercury emissions settle in the domestic cycle and the rest enter the global cycle.
Other sources of mercury emissions:
Combustion of toxic wastes
Chlorine manufacture
Destroying products that contain mercury
And even spilling free-form mercury.
Estimates show that half of the mercuric deposits in U.S., be it on land, water or air attribute their sources to the plethora of the country’s industrial cycle.
Mercury in sea culture:
Vapor-form mercury settles in water or on land where it drains of into water after a period of time. When in a water body, certain microorganisms come in contact with the element and react to convert it to methyl mercury. This compound is a highly toxic form of mercury and enters sea creatures sharing the same water body. Humans are highly susceptible to mercury poisoning because of such contamination. The amount of methyl mercury a sea creature carries depends on its life cycle, its feeding habits, and its position in the food chain.
Mercury endangers mother nature:
Mammals and their aerial counterparts which prey on sea creatures like fish are more vulnerable to being endangered by methyl mercury. In the same manner, carnivorous animals preying on these fish-eating animals are also poisoned and thus progressively, mercury poisons the whole of the food chain to the top-most level i.e. humans. Animals, when poisoned by methyl mercury show symptoms such as abnormal behavior, slower reproduction rates with high infant mortality and slower growth.
