Moldova will remove a wide range of products containing mercury or mercury components, including all the kinds of thermometers, luminescent lamps, cosmetic products and medicines. Such a condition is imposed on a country when signing the Minamata Convention on Mercury. Moldova signed this convention in the Japanese town Minamata last week, IPN reports.
Minister of the Environment Gheorghe Salaru, who signed the Minamata Convention, told a news conference that this international treaty is designed to protect human health and the environment from anthropogenic emissions and releases of mercury and mercury compounds at coal-fired power plans and cement factories and to ban the production, import and export of a wide range of products containing mercury after 2020.
Thus, in the immediate future Moldova will work out a plan of action for reducing and eliminating releases of mercury. There will be created a mini-factory for recycling luminescent lamps, special storehouses for used objects containing mercury, etc. Gheorghe Salaru said that the Government now does not have financial resources to implement the mentioned plan, but the country can have access to international programs by it. The Governments of Japan, Switzerland and Norway announced their readiness to support projects to reduce releases of mercury.
The minister also said that in order to exactly implement the Minamata Convention and the plan of action, the people must realize the danger of using objects containing mercury. When thrown and stored, such objects can pollute the environment. For comparison, a battery of the size of a pill can contaminate about 500 liters of water during the next 50 years when thrown at random.
The Minamata Convention was signed by 91 countries and the EU. Its implementation will contribute to the enforcement of Article 37 of the Constitution of Moldova – Right to a healthy environment.
Under the UN, the concentration of mercury in the world’s oceans has doubled in the last century to about 260 tonnes. The mercury and mercury compounds seriously affect the people’s health, including the brain, nervous system, kidneys and the digestive system.
