It stays airborne for a year … and its exposure could lead to tremors, mood disorders, and memory issues.
These are 7 simple questions on mercury, answered by an expert.
Paid partnership with @nrdc.org.
These are 7 simple questions on mercury, answered by an expert.
Paid partnership with @nrdc.org.
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TechTranscript
00:00Mercury is basically a silvery liquid at room temperature.
00:11It's the only metal that is actually liquid at room temperature.
00:18Mercury used to be used in various forms of traditional medicine.
00:22We're talking about ointments and pills and like elixirs for people to deal with their
00:27health problems.
00:28Mercury's ability to dissolve other metals led to its use in dental fillings and also
00:34in the production of other products like mirrors.
00:38Mercury used to be used in the production of electrical equipment, things like fluorescent
00:42lamps.
00:43So mercury really used to have a lot of different applications until it was realized that it
00:46had these toxic effects on human health.
00:52The toxic effects in terms of modern society were not really widely appreciated until the
00:56late 19th century and early 20th century.
01:00And we've been understanding the neurodegenerative, the effects upon the brain.
01:06Mercury can do real damage to the central nervous system.
01:10It can also lead to really scary symptoms like tremors, mood disorders and irritability,
01:17problems with your memory and even changes in your personality.
01:20Prolonged exposure to mercury can lead to kidney damage, even kidney failure.
01:26Inhalation of mercury vapor in the air that we breathe can very clearly lead to respiratory
01:30problems, things like coughing or chest pain, even just kind of general difficulty breathing.
01:40Mercury is a naturally occurring material in the earth's crust and it's part of the
01:44fossil fuels that we're burning, especially coal.
01:47So when we burn things like coal and oil, we essentially mobilize and release that mercury
01:53contamination into the air.
01:56Once it's in the air, it can actually persist and stay airborne for more than a year and
02:01end up kind of accumulating in different ecosystems.
02:04Mercury in the atmosphere can be transported over like really far distances, anywhere from
02:09like a few feet to, you know, halfway around the globe, which is why even if you don't
02:14have a coal-fired power plant right near you, you might still be at risk of mercury contamination
02:19because the winds help to disperse that air pollution.
02:25Power plants are actually the biggest source of mercury pollution that people are exposed
02:30to in the U.S.
02:32Vulnerable communities living near coal-fired power plants that are burning coal that contains
02:36mercury, even if you're not directly near a plant, you live downwind from one, you're
02:40also at elevated risk of mercury exposure.
02:44It's very clear from the Environmental Protection Agency's own modeling that exposure to mercury
02:48is a life or death issue.
02:49EPA's estimates of the health benefits of the current mercury and air toxic standards
02:54indicate that that control of mercury air pollution is helping to prevent up to 11,000
03:01premature deaths, 4,700 heart attacks, and about 130,000 asthma attacks every year.
03:08Those health benefits are especially important in younger folks, babies, infants, those whose
03:14organ systems are still developing can incur special harm from mercury air pollution.
03:19The neurodegenerative effects of mercury, a toxin, are lifelong, and so reducing exposure,
03:25especially for those early in life, is a really important public health priority.
03:32The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is using its own authority under the Clean Air
03:37Act, one of our bedrock environmental laws, to address a whole bunch of different types
03:43of air pollution, including mercury.
03:45Current mercury and air toxic standards, MATS, have very clear and gigantic health benefits
03:50for people, and it's important that we strengthen those controls on mercury to achieve even
03:55larger public health protection.
03:57Even as some coal-fired power plants have cleaned up their act thanks to the MATS controls,
04:02there are still far too many that are emitting unacceptable levels of mercury and other hazardous
04:07air pollution into the air that we breathe.
04:10The big picture is that we can do more.
04:11We can do better by our children.
04:13We can do better by people living with chronic health conditions that mercury makes even
04:17harder to deal with by implementing even stronger MATS standards right now.