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I think people are not aware that sometimes the gold that you buy maybe is poisoning the rainforest in the Amazon or other tropical areas. About 20 percent of the gold produced in the world come from artisanal gold mining. It's not that small. And when you say artisanal, it's not because it's natural. It's called artisanal because they don't use fancy equipment. They have a very, like, rustic way. People have been doing that since the gold rush in California. They were using mercury. So the technique hasn't advanced that much since then. Mercury is used because it's an easy way to extract the gold. So what the miners do is, the gold is like, in the sandy form, and it's usually in the sediment of the rivers. They put mercury, the mercury binds with gold, then they have the amalgam, which is a mix of gold and mercury and then they burn the amalgam. And then the mercury just evaporates to the air. And they got the gold. When they're doing the mixing with gold, some of the mercury goes into the river. It's easy to evaporate, you don't have to heat it, it goes to the air, and it can be transported like, long distance. This happens mainly in the tropics and is the biggest anthropogenic source of mercury on the planet. Around 1,400 tons of mercury annually is released into the environment because of artisanal gold mining. It's an international concern. And it's not because it harms just the place where it's used. For example, there are even very high levels of mercury in the whales, in the beluga whales, in the Arctic.
我認為大家並沒有意識到， 有時，你購買的黃金 可能會毒害亞馬遜 或其他熱帶地區的雨林。 全球大約 20％ 的黃金 是手工開採的。 比例並不低。 且所謂的「手工」 並不是天然的意思。 稱為手工的原因是因為 他們沒有使用很炫的設備。 他們的方式非常……可說是原始。 這種方式從加州的 淘金熱時期就有了。 他們用的是汞。 從那之後，這種技術 並沒有多大的進步。 使用汞來提煉黃金十分簡單。 礦工的做法是…… 黃金是類似沙狀的， 通常會混在河流的沉積物中。 他們放入汞，汞會和黃金結合， 就會得到汞合金， 即黃金和汞的混合物， 接著他們燃燒汞合金， 而水銀就會蒸發到空氣中。 他們便能得到黃金。 當他們把汞與黃金混合時， 有一些汞會進入河流中。 它很容易蒸發， 不必加熱，就會進入空氣， 因此能飄散到很遠的地方。 這狀況主要發生在熱帶， 是地球上最大的人為汞排放來源。 每年有約一千四百公噸的汞 是因為手工開採黃金 而排放到環境中的。 這是個國際關注的議題。 因為汞不只危害使用它的地方。 比如，就連北極的白鯨 體內都有大量的汞。