2-4 The Movement of Anti-Incineration in Taiwan since 2002

 Herlin Hsieh, Researcher, Taiwan Watch Institute

Incinerators are well documented to be the main sources of dioxin-like chemicals and heavy metals. And it has been demonstrated by many communities worldwide that there are environmentally sound alternatives that can well manage the waste problem without spilling the toxins while reserving the limited resources. The alternatives, such as reduction, reusing, recycling, and composting, are quite simple in technology and cheaper in cost when comparing with the incineration, however, many governments, including Taiwan, choose incineration to make all the unwanted garbage(actually the resource) “disappear” instantly.

Owing to the limited land area with a high population density as well as highly industrious development, it has become increasingly difficult to find a landfills site for Taiwan governments since 1980s. Hence, in 1986, on a technical meeting held by Executives Yuan, Taiwan government decided to adopt incineration as the first priority for waste treatment and landfills as the secondary one. And the incineration was deemed as a long-term waste disposal method. Consequently, in 1990, a plan called “Construction Projects of Waste-to-Energy(Incineration) Plants”, for building 21 large-capacity MSW incinerators, was proposed by the EPA. Again, in 1996, the EPA proposed another plan to encourage the publicly and privately owned organizations to build and operate another 15 large capacity MSW incinerators in BOO/BOT methods. Until 2002, due to great objection from the communities, the EPA has abandoned 4 of the 15 incinertors in the second building plan.

With the progress of the incinerators building plans, the concerned environmental organizations have been making a lot of efforts on advocating the problems of incinerators, especially to the communities where the incinerators were sited. For example, in July 1999, Taiwan Watch Institute(TWI) and Green Citizens Action Alliance (GCAA) cooperated with Essential Information Center of USA to invite Dr. Paul Connett, an advocator of anti-incinerator and a chemical professor of St. Lawrence University of New York to visit our country. During his visit, we arranged 13 lectures and community meetings at Taipei, Kaohsiung, Tainan, Taichung, Hsingchu, and Taoyuen on the problems of incinerators. Gradually, there were anti-incinerators organizations and communities emerging in each county to fight with the EPA’s burning policy.

In September 2002, after coming back from the Johannesburg earth summit, several anti-incinerators organizations and communities gathered in Taitung City to establish Taiwan Anti-Incinerators Alliance (TAIA), for facilitating the experience sharing, information exchange, campaign mutual-supporting, and policy lobby. Though the member organizations might know each other before, but never work all together. The first experience sharing was exciting. Communities without incinerators would understand more profoundly the problems of incinerators from the real story of those people from communities with incinerators in operating, such as Taipei and Kaohsiung. It would encourage more people to fight for the issues more eagerly.

The following months were the season for the parliament to review the draft budget plan proposed by the Executive Yuan. Though most of the legislators didn’t understand and wouldn’t care the problems of burning policy, there were a few who really cared and would like to change the policy with their best, most of them are members of a subgroup in the parliament called Legislation Yuan Commission on Sustainable Development (LYCSD), and they have been cooperating with some of the organizations intimately since long time ago. With the promise of their support and through the network of the alliance, several anti-incineration citizen organizations made a petition in October, which was then endorsed by 122 organizations nationwide, to ask the parliament to delete the EPA budget relative to the incineration, which amounted to 3.7 billion NTD, over 1/3 of the total EPA budget, and to request the EPA to stop the incinerators building plans.

In this petition and the following press conferences that held several times in one month to response to the EPA’s defense, we point out several problems of this policy:

1.    There was already not sufficient household garbage for the incinerators in operation to burn, why did the EPA continue to build the remaining incinerators without review the policy? By 2002, there were 19 large scale MSW incinerators in operation, with a total design capacity of 21,000 tons per day, while the daily garbage generation nationwide is around 19,000 tons only(19,886 tons/day in 2001, and 18,534 tons/day in 2002), and continued to decrease since 1998 according to the trend.

Take an example of Taitung County, which is a rural county with half of its population centralized in the Taitung city. It was planned to build a 300 tons/day of incinerator in BOO method, with the contract that the Taitung county government guarantees to provide an amount of garbage, which is 85% of the design capacity, for 20 years. And the Taitung county government then requests the Taitung city should be responsible for providing half amount of the guaranteed garbage. But under the effort of the incumbent Taitung city mayor and the citizens, the garbage generation of Taitung city has dropped from 150 tons/day to less than 90 tons/day during the period of 1998 to 2002. They began to realize that they don’t need the incinerator and therefore raised objection to the project. Faced with the objection, the Taitung county magistrate said that it is the policy of the central government (the EPA), and the EPA said that it is the requirement of the local government to build the incinerator. Under of the shirking of both sides, the incinerator has been 80% constructed.

Another ridiculous example is Hsinchu county incinerator. There is already an incinerator for Hsinchu city with capacity 900 tons/day in the borderline of Hsinchu city and county, that only gets about 370 tons/day (not including the general industrial waste) of garbage to burn. But due to the EPA’s “one county (or city) one incinerator” principle, the Hsinchu county incinerator (300 tons/day) was sited just 3 km away from the Hsinchu city incinerator. The citizens urged that the government shall well make use of the surplus capacity of Hsinchu city incinerator, instead of building a new incinerator, or the area between the two incinerators, where there is an original plane forest (one of the remaining two original plane forest in Taiwan) and a mullet farm, would be severely polluted by the emission of these two incinerators. The resident of that locality even held a referendum to express their opposition. There were 3800 objection votes, which is 98% of total votes. But the EPA and the local government still insist to build this incinerator.

2.    Since the incineration rate of the household garbage was around 50%, it has resulted in a surplus capacity of 12,000 tons per day. Trying to cover up this policy mistake, the EPA allowed the general industrial waste to go into the incinerators. It has been resulting in the smuggling of hazardous industrial waste into the incinerators and causing more serious pollution problems. Further, the incinerators were paid by all the tax payers, it is not fair to use them to treat the industrial waste.

For example, some residents living around the Peitou Incinerator has been suffering from the stink from the incinerator since it was erected. They observed the smell would be worse when the private garbage trucks (which carry the general industrial waste) come into the incinerator. One of them has once saw a garbage truck carried barrels containing waste solution, he stopped the truck and told the driver not to send the barrels into the incinerator any more. Next time he was astonished to see a garbage truck splashed waste solution on the way because they just poured the waste solution on the garbage to avoid the resident seeing the barrels.

Thus in 2002, the residents organized and established an organization called Jilian Environmental Volunteers Group. They hit upon a strategy to inspect the garbage without notification. The first time, with the company of one city councilor, they entered the incinerator smoothly, and found some items those should not be fed into the incinerator, such as medical waste, tires, etc. They took pictures of what they saw, and thus got many evidences to protest against the incinerator and to raise the awareness of the communities. With more people participate their action, their strength gets stronger and now they can enter the incinerator without any notification and without the company of city councilor. With their strong monitoring, now the smell from the incinerator gets lighter. But still, “Every time we go to check the garbage, we can find something which should not be burned”, they said.


3.    Except incineration and landfills, the EPA didn’t well consider other alternatives in the waste policy, which has resulted in so much money spent on the incineration and squeezed the budgets for other alternatives. For example, the budget planned for the composting is only 0.1 billion in 2003, which is 1/37 of incineration budget.

4.    The EPA planned to build the incinerators, but didn’t consider the proper disposal of the ashes, which has resulted in the casual dumping of the toxic ashes in the landfills, and threatening the health of people and the environment. To solve the problems, the EPA tried to introduce technologies such as plasma melting and ashes screening plants to reuse the toxic ashes, without carefully evaluating the feasibility and risk of ash reuse, and without establishing the detail specification for that practice. The investment on these technologies will be in vain as those spent on incinerators.

The case of South Tau-Yuang incinerator shows that the incinerator cannot solve the problem of landfills deficiency. That incinerator was the first one to be built in the BOO method, which require in the contract between the county government and the vendor that the disposal of the ashes shall be the responsibility of the county government. But the county government didn’t consider where to dispose of the ashes, instead they require the township to take back the ashes in proportional to the amounts of garbage they send to the incinerator. Without knowledge and qualified facilities to dispose the toxic ashes, the township just dumped the ashes on the landfills.

And for the Hsinchu city incinerator, it didn’t have the solidification facility to treat the fly ashes when the incinerator was erected. Therefore the city government just stored the fly ash onsite by PE bags since they started operating. After 2 or 3 years, under the torture of the sun and the rain, the PE bags were broken and severely threaten the health of people worked in the plant, including the staffs of Environmental Protection Department of Hsinchu city. The Hsinchu city EPD office is located inside the incinerator, in order to tell citizens not to be afraid of the incinerator. But on the contrary, they themselves are really afraid of the fly ashes.

This petition raised the attention of the legislators, and hence the then EPA administrator was criticized badly by the legislators when they reviewing the EPA budget. Under great pressure, the EPA promise to review the policy in order to keep their budget. Finally, with some procedure tricks made by some KMT legislators who support the incinerators, the budget passed and the incinerators building plans continued to run, but the environmental organizations and the concerned legislators didn’t give up.

After the budget fight, the LYCSD held a public hearing in December, 2002, which provided us the organizations and the communities an opportunity to criticize the EPA administer face to face. In that public hearing, one legislator suggested to hold a national waste policy summit to collect the public opinion about the current and future policy, and to let the officials with higher position, such as the president or the premier, to hear the voice of people. But who will hold the summit? After some further negotiations after the public hearing, all the relative department of Executive Yuan avoided the task, and the EPA would rather pay the fees but not hold the summit. Finally, the concerned legislators (actually their assistants) from the LYCSD could not but take the work, while TWI and GCAA helped to communicate with the concerned people around the island, such as inquiring them what they want to talk about on the summit, asking them to disseminate the message of the summit, and reminding them to get ready for the summit.

Before the summit, in March, 2003, the EPA announced to stop the building projects of two incinerators(one in Taipei County and the other one in Taichung city), to response to the citizen organization’s requests and to calm down the pressure. But it’s not enough, because there are 11 incinerators building projects still survives.

The summit, divided into five area meetings and one conclusive meeting, were held in the weekends from March 26th to April 20th and chaired by six concerned legislators from the LYCSD respectively. In the area meetings, the attendants included the residents and representative of organizations in that area, professors and experts, local government officials and some EPA officials. The area meetings started with the presentation of a parliament assistant to point the problem of the waste policy, then came the presentation of the officials to report the state of that area in waste treatment, and then opened to the citizens to criticize what’s wrong with the policy, to suggest what the officials shall do, and all the criticisms and suggestions were collected to the conclusive meeting, which make the following main conclusions for the EPA to promise or to consider in their new waste policy(the detailed conclusions are not addressed here):

1.    Stop all the unfinished incinerators building projects, to avoid wasting money on the investment of these unnecessary facilities.
2.    The Executive Yuan shall use the saved budget to promote recycling and composting.
3.    The operating information of the incinerators shall be accessible to all the public in order for the whole society to monitor. The information shall include the sources and categories of the waste, and the data relative to operating procedures, flue gas analysis and ashes treatment.
4.    Reinforce the citizens monitoring mechanism and the requirement/management of the incinerators operating vendors, to avoid the poor management of the incinerators causing serious pollution problems.

In addition to the conclusions, the citizen organizations also urged that the government should move toward zero waste with the cooperation of government, citizens and enterprises, and reexamine carefully the ashes reuse policy due to the high risk of that practice.

Though the then EPA administrator replied very politely in the conclusive meeting, he still dared not to promise all the appeals, especially the requirements of stopping the incinerators building projects. The others, he only promised to discuss further with the legislators about the implementation schedule.

After the summit, in May, 2003, some delegates of the citizen organizations attended several meetings with the EPA officials and the concerned legislators to discuss how to push the conclusion of the summit, but at last the official expressed that they were not “comfortable” with the presence of NGOs, therefore we quitted from the negotiation and felt very disappointed.


Three months later, we got a draft report of the EPA about the overall review of the waste treatment scheme. In this report, the EPA began to talk about zero waste, but not our zero waste. They defined that zero waste as “raw waste shall not be directly sent into the landfills as a way of disposal, but should adopt the source reduction and resources exploitation measures to recycle the resources.” Then they tried to define the incineration as a way of “resource exploitation”, and hide the burning policy under the mask of zero waste.

It’s really boring to criticize repeatedly for the same policy with the same reasons, especially after talking too much on the waste policy summit held in this first-half year. But we had to. We wrote articles and held a press conference in October to criticize the old “new policy” and point out the EPA’s tricks. In the meantime, the concerned legislators continued to press the EPA to toward the real zero waste, with all the way they could think about.

Although we were a little tired since the waste policy summit, but in June two new communities joined the movement. One is a district called Ankang, in Hsindian city of Taipei County, where a steep slope beside the location of Hsindian incinerator was sited for the landfills of the incineration ashes, that will be constructed in BOO method. It is a typical case of official-business collusion, because the official would rather allow the vendor to turn the locked up land(construction limited due to steep slope) into a money-spinner by the plan, than to care the risk of inducing debris flow. Meanwhile, the construction plan of that landfills also reflects the problem that the officials of Taipei County government are so dependent upon incineration to treat the waste, that they are reluctant to implement strategy of source reduction.

The other is a beautiful rural town called Ji-Ji located in the central Taiwan, which was sited for building an incinerator for the Nantou county. It’s a remaining project under the EPA’s incinerators building Plan. The residents in that town are very worry about the impacts the incinerator would bring to their lives, which strongly depend on the tourism. First of all, the incinerator would bring the whole county’s garbage trucks to the town, which will cause traffic jam. Second, it would spill toxic gas and makes the air no more clean. The two factors would result in the reluctance of the tourist to go sightseeing there and give impacts to their lives. Not to mention the incinerator would contaminate the soils on which they grow their crops.

They had strongly demonstrated before but the EIA still passed. However, the premise of the EIA permission is that the incinerator vendor shall get the agreement of the township council. Thus the angry residents then chose public referendum to express their disagreement in Octorber, around 97.88% of the votes were objection, with 68.7% of the residents went to vote.

Owing to the different opinions about the referendum law between the ruling party and opposition parties, this referendum attracted the attention of the press and gave fresh vigor to the anti-incineration movement. And in this very period, the stubborn EPA administrator Mr. Hao resigned, with excuse that he thought the results of referendum should not change the EIA, “the public opinions should not override the expertise”, while the other officials in the ruling party thought that the public opinions should be respected.

We the environmentalist strongly disagreed that the past EIA procedures were expertized, especially in the case of the incinerators and nuclear power plant. An apparent example is the Maioli county incinerator, which was sited directly on a wetland. A resident questioned an official in the Waste Policy Summit, why they didn’t consider the impact of the incinerator on the wetland during the EIA procedure? “Because there was no wetland then” was the answer. “How ridiculous the answer is”, one activist heard the answer and said, “could it be possible that the wetland would appear within a period of only 2 or 3 years?”

The EPA administrator’s position was took over by the then assistant EPA administrator Mr. Chang, who seems to be not so stubborn as Mr. Hao, and seems to be willing to communicate with the environmentalists. His inauguration coincided with the beginning of this year’s budget review, and after some efforts made by the concerned legislators, the Legislation Yuan finally passed a decision that required the EIA to reconsider the possibility of stopping 7 incinerators building projects and to submit their conclusion within three months for the parliament to review, or the budget for those projects would be on hold.

These 7 unfinished incinerators are mainly located in the rural counties, including Hsinchu county, Miaoli county, Nantou county, Yulin county, Hualian county, Taitung county, and Penghu county. Some of these incinerators have been in the construction stage, therefore the stopping of those incinerators would involve the problem of indemnification to the vendors, which is the biggest excuse of the EPA not to stop the building projects. On December 11th, recognizing that more pressure should be exerted on the central government, 2000 peoples from the Hsinchu county, Maioli county and Yulin county were called and gathered in Taipei through the cooperation of TAIA members, of which Hsinchu county Environmental Coalition, Environmental and Cultural Coalition on Caring for the Mangrove of Junan (in Maioli), and Linnei (in Yulin) Anti-Incinerator Coalition made most of the efforts. The object of this assembly was to appeal to the President, Executive Yuan and the EPA, for the stopping of these incinerators building projects. We emphasize that the loss of stopping the incinerators would be compensated by the benefit of adopting zero waste strategy, which has been demonstrated by the calculation result from the LYCSD. However, the EPA administrator asked the people to wait 3 months for their answer.

The movement is going on, the story continues. Now we and the other organizations are gathering the strength through citizen educations, and the lobbies to the local government by the local communities are going on. Under the political system, of which the officials and the business are closely connected, only with more citizens to join the movement, then is it possible to turnover the policy.

Finally, I would like to thank all the anti-incineration environmental organizations and communities for their devotion to the movement.



Asia and Mercury Contamination
Setsuko Yamamoto
(Non-incineration Citizens Japan, representative)

UNEP Global Mercury Assessment Report
　Presented to the UNEP Governing Council, held in Nairobi, Kenya on 3~6 Feb.2003. The key findings are as follows:
1. Why should we be concerned?
2. Why is local /regional action, by itself, not sufficient?
3 How does Mercury get into Humans and wildlife?
4 What are the primary sources of mercury releases?
5 What are the anthropogenic sources?
6 How can releases be reduced?
7 What would improve our understanding and international coordination?

World in Danger
Mercury threatens wild animals and human being as well as environment.
Some wild animals near Arctic Circle are endangered
High level of mercury in women
Mercury is still used in international market.
Mercury exposure has serious effects.

Why it happens?
200,000 tons of mercury are cycling around the globe with adding 5,000 tons yearly emissions from both natural and anthropogenic sources.
Mercury is present throughout the environment.
Mercury is persistent and cycles globally.
Global Cycling of Mercury increases the problem.
Intervention is needed.

Waste Incinerators
Coal-fired power stations and waste incinerators are the primary mercury sources.
Among heavy metals emitted from incinerators, mercury is the biggest
Incineration of medical wastes, tires, sludge, hazardous wastes
Ash melting furnace is also dangerous
Incinerators are indispensable to sewage disposal plant

Fish
Mercury is taken to fish through ecosystem (food-chain)
Mercury has an impact on global fishing.
Some fishes has dangerous level of mercury
Warning is necessary

JAPAN
Mercury is not substitute for Air Pollution Control Act.
There is no regulation on mercury from incinerator emission
The government would not tell the international situation to citizens
The discussion and results of UNEP Governing Council had not been publicized.

Japanese industry is trying to find disposal site in South East Asia.
We should know their strategy and secure our common future.




Asia and Mercury Contamination
Setsuko Yamamoto

When we oppose incineration, we are against emission of dioxins, furans, PCBs and various heavy metals. My topic for today is mercury. Because there has been a very
important international movement last year.

UNEP Global Mercury Assessment Report
In 6th Feb. 2003, UNEP released shocking report of Mercury contamination. The report compiled by 150 scientists in the world and was presented to the Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum's 22nd Session.
It tells how mercury is accumulated in the environment and threatens the population and wild animals. (UNEP tried to form the basis for political decisions that will set the course for global action.) Key findings of the report are as follows:
　1 Why should we be concerned?
2 Why is local /regional action, by itself, not sufficient?
3    How does Mercury get into Humans and wildlife?
4    What are the primary sources of mercury releases?
5    What are the anthropogenic (human-made) sources?
6    How can releases be reduced?
7    What would improve our understanding and international coordination?
So, if we can answer all these questions, at least we can move to solve one of the critical pollution brought by incinerators.

World in Danger
Mercury presents all over the world now, and threatens all living creatures.
In some area in Canada and Greenland, the level of mercury in Arctic seals and beluga whales have increased by 2 to 4 times over the last 25 years. Some Canadian birds have very high levels of mercury in their eggs that means they are facing the risk of extinction. In warmer waters as well, bigger fish or marine mammals are at risk, like hump-backed dolphins in Hong Kong.

Humans are also in danger. According to a US study, the babies born with a risk of brain damage (learning difficulties, impaired nervous systems) may be reached to 300,000 every year. Globally, the number could run into the millions.
Another US study of American Women has found that about 1 in 12 (about 5 million) have mercury levels above the level considered safe by the United States EPA.

Mercury and its compound (like methyl-mercury) are highly toxic. It accumulates in the brain and cause various adverse effects like: irritability, tremors, disturbance to vision, memory loss, cardiovascular problems, palpitations and heart disease (also damage to thyroid gland and liver, peeling on hands and feet, itching and rashes).
The most vulnerable are fetuses, the newborn and young children because they have sensitive, developing nervous system.

Why it happens?
Mercury has been used to extract precious metals (GOLD) from ores, and it was also used in various products like fluorescent lamps, thermometers, dental amalgams, electrical devices etc. And is still widely used in the international market.

It was found that vaporized mercury stay in the air for a long time, and travel hundred and thousand miles away from its original sources. According to some report, about 200,000 tons of mercury is cycling around the globe now. And another 5,000 tons are added from both natural sources and human activities.

Because mercury is natural (constituent) element, it cannot be dissolved. (That is why mercury is persistent and accumulates in the environment without reducing.) And when it meet with other pollutants like chlorine or acid, they make compound and fell to the ground…acid rain or mercury rain.
The global cycling of mercury is causing many problems all over the world. As it can travel trans-boundary, nobody can escape from its influence. So, we have to start world-wide intervention as soon as possible.

Sources - Waste Incinerators
Coal-fired power stations and waste incinerators are the primary mercury sources.
And as for the area, 86% is from Asian countries. To meet the energy demand from growing population, they use cheap, obtainable coals. Coals contain mercury. It is ironical because rich developed countries can use expensive but cleaner natural gas, but most of natural gas is produced in developing countries.

Among heavy metals emitted from incinerators, mercury is the biggest. But UNEP report says the incineration data is underestimated and incomplete. It is likely. For example, there is no regulation for mercury emission from incinerators in Japan.

Gasification incinerators are worse because of its high temperature. They emit gaseous mercury into the air everyday. Ash melting furnace is also dangerous, because ash contain much heavy metals like lead, cadmium, chromium, etc. Likewise, sewage sludge incinerator is producing more mercury. Incineration of medical wastes, tires, hazardous wastes also emit much mercury and other hazardous substances into air.
Rich countries are going to transfer these pollution sources to developing countries sometimes with ODA or export credit. Japan is seeing SE Asian countries as possible dumping site.

Fish
Mercury has an impact on global fishing. Because it has bio-accumulation and bio
magnification. And through food chain, it turns into the most toxic shape, methyl-mercury. Bigger fish such as tuna, swordfish and marine mammals like whales have dangerous level of mercury.

Many studies have pointed out the linkage between baby’s brain damage and mother’s mercury poisoning from eating contaminated fish. Fish is still beneficial food for humans, but we should know some people are at risk of mercury poisoning.
So, warning is necessary.
Only 0.9 grams of mercury (1/70th of a teaspoon) into 25-acre (10 hectare) pond, it can contaminate all fish unsafe to eat. (Toxic Link) The elevated mercury level in bigger fish means mercury presents all around, all waters and air.

(We have experienced Minamata disease (Chisso, 1950’), the second Niigata Minamata disease (Showa Denko, 1965), the third Ariake Minamata disease (Unknown, 1973). The victims brought the case to the court, but the government and company has never admitted the responsibility. Several thousand people were made ill or died in Japan in the 1950 and 60s as a result of eating seafood heavily contaminated by mercury in Minamata Bay.)

JAPAN
After the UNEP meeting, Japanese government only released moderate advice in June, for pregnant women not to eat too much fish like sharks, swordfish, alfonsino, some spices of whales. But they did not mention about tuna, Japanese’s favorite. So, only tuna sold in Japan may be safe.

*The press release from the Ministry of Welfare and Labor tells Mercury in fish is generally low-level, not harmful for human, so, people need not to cut the intake of fish. But UNEP is recommending rather reduce eating fish.

The problem is, they did not tell anything about the international situation and necessity of immediate action. They do not show even the UNEP report, not its discussion and results. People know nothing about it. (I got it through GAIA.)

Mercury is not substitute for Air Pollution Control Act. There is no regulation on mercury from incinerator emission. The incinerator can emit as much as mercury into the air. The government has never conducted fish or water contamination research except some area like Minamata Bay. So, they cannot tell the truth.
Japanese industry has been trying to develop cleaning technology of mercury (soil cleaning business is flourished in Japan after Soil Contamination Treatment Law), but so far there is no successful technology for mercury.

Now, they are targeting SE Asia as a destination of dirty technology such as incinerators, gasification incinerators, nuclear electric power stations and waste itself. We should know their strategy and reject them and secure our common, and clean future. Thanks for listening.
(To compile the report, the UNEP asked all the government, international institutions and NGOs to submit all available information, reports, papers, data, books. Most of the government submitted the recent result of the research, but to my astonishment, Japanese government only sent the old report in hard copy. )
Anthropogenic sources of mercury releases
Table-Estimates of global atmospheric releases of mercury from a number of major nthropogenic sources in 1995 (metric tons/year). Releases to other media are not accounted for here. *1.
1    Note that releases to aquatic and terrestrial environments - as well as atmospheric releases from a number of other sources - are not included in the table, because no recent global estimates have been made. See chapter 6 for description of this issue.
2    Considered underestimated by authors of the inventory, see notes to table 6.10.
3    Represents total of the sources mentioned in this table, not all known sources. Sums are rounded and may therefore not sum up precisely.
4    Estimated emissions from artisanal gold mining refer to late 1980's/early 1990's situation. A newer reference (MMSD, 2002) indicates that mercury consumption for artisanal gold mining - and thereby most likely also mercury releases - may be even higher than presented here.
5    Production of non-ferrous metals releasing mercury, including mercury, zinc, gold, lead, copper, nickel.