Talk:Marine mercury pollution

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Abrusca. Peer reviewers: Abrusca.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 00:55, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Grammar: Fourth Sentence
The sentence awkwardly reads "In Global Mercury Assessment - 2002 concluded that, International actions to address the global mercury problem should not be delayed”.[2]". This appears to be a combination of two sentences, one that says "In the Global Mercury Assessment..." and another that says "The Global Mercury Assessment concluded that...".

In order to be grammatically correct, I suggest that the sentence be phrased: "The 2002 Global Mercury Assessment concluded that "international actions to address the global mercury problem should not be delayed."[2].

Abrusca (talk) 03:11, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Reference 21
Reference number 21 (https://theconversation.com/we-created-a-new-material-from-orange-peel-that-can-clean-up-mercury-pollution-49355 (10/25/2015)) appears to be a biased source. The article itself states that the author is "an inventor on a patent application" for the sulphur-limonene polysulphide technology intended to remediate mercury pollution, thus he has questionable financial interests in the technology. Due to this bias, the article is not a reliable source because it was in the author's best interest to glorify the technology in order to attract investors/buyers. Additionally, the claim that the technology can remove over half of the mercury content in water is discredited because the experiment was conducted by the producers of the technology who certainly do not have a neutral stance on the product.

In order to fix this issue, it should either be mentioned in the paragraph that the author has a financial interest bias or a different source in which a neutral party tests and evaluates the effectiveness of the orange peel technology should be used instead.

Abrusca (talk) 03:32, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Introduction: Add sentence(s) about the health effects of mercury consumption
In the introduction, it is mentioned that oceanic mercury pollution is eventually transferred to humans through consumption of methylmercury-filled seafood but there is no mention of the negative health effects this can have on humans. It is valuable to mention these health consequences in order to demonstrate the scope of the problem that mercury pollution poses to human society.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency cites the following health risks of methylmercury exposure to people of all ages:


 * impaired hearing, speech, walking
 * loss of peripheral vision
 * weakened muscles
 * deteriorated movement coordination
 * feelings of "pins and needles" in the hands, feet, and mouth area

Infants and children (including fetuses) are especially harmed by methylmercury exposure as it prevents proper brain and nervous system development, impairing:
 * cognitive thinking,
 * memory
 * attention
 * language
 * fine motor skills
 * visual spatial skills

Abrusca (talk) 04:10, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Prevention and Remedy: Add content about global action to reduce anthropogenic mercury emissions
In order to demonstrate how "prevention" is being achieved, the page should present some of the steps that countries around the world are taking to limit their output of mercury.

There is a United Nations treaty called "The Minamata Convention on Mercury" that seeks to reform human activities that are contributing to mercury pollution. The convention is named for a severe, prolonged outbreak of mercury poisoning experienced by citizens of Japan in the 1950s after a chemical factory's industrial wastewater was released to Minamata Bay, causing methylmercury to bioaccumulate in seafood that was then consumed by local residents. The UN treaty was approved in Geneva, Switzerland on 19 January 2013 and adopted on 10 October 2013 in Kumamoto, Japan. To date, the treaty has 128 signatures and 84 ratifications. The primary requirements of the Minamata Convention can be described as follows:
 * Reduce or eliminate use and release of mercury during artisanal and small-scale gold mining
 * Limit mercury air emissions from industrial activity (sources include coal-fired power plants and industrial boilers, some non-ferrous metals production methods, waste incineration, and cement production)
 * Eliminate or reduce use of mercury in consumer products like batteries, lights, cosmetics, and pesticides
 * Stop or limit use of mercury in certain manufacturing processes like chlor-alkali production, vinyl chloride monomer production, and acetaldehyde production
 * Implement safer storage and disposal of mercury
 * Remedy sites contaminated with mercury

This information is important because it shows that there is global awareness that anthropogenic mercury emissions are a severe threat to the environment and human health and that action is being taken globally to reduce anthropogenic contribution to mercury pollution.

Abrusca (talk) 21:45, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Cinnabar
You cannot write that cinnabar CONTAINS mercury sulfide. Cinnabar IS mercury sulfide.Eudialytos (talk) 19:12, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Toxicology
— Assignment last updated by Mariserge529 (talk) 18:11, 28 September 2022 (UTC)