Original version

BBC World Service Online

Business Daily

Factual: Money

The daily drama of money and work from the BBC.

Business Daily: Elemental Business: Mercury

27/11/2013

Elemental Business: Mercury

BBC World Service - Business Daily, Elemental Business: Mercury

Can the use of this beautiful but deadly element be phased out?

Can the use of this beautiful but deadly element be phased out? That is the aim of an international treaty that comes into force early next year.

Mercury is the bad-boy of the periodic table, often called 'quicksilver', it is both mesmerising and toxic as Professor Andrea Sella of University College London vividly explains. In the fourth of our series examining the global economics of chemical elements Justin Rowlatt speaks to Tim Kasten of the United Nations' Environment Programme who is one of the architects of a new international treaty that aims to ban the metal from industrial uses by 2020. As we discover, that ban will affect everything from coal-fired power stations to small-scale gold miners in developing countries, to the illumination of the lowly office. We visit a fluorescent bulb recycling plant outisde Norwich and speak to small scale gold miners in Ghana about how the ban might affect them.  But it is all in a good cause, as Justin discovers when he visits one of the finest fishmongers in London.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Business Daily

Elemental Business: Mercury

Genres

Brand

BBC World Service Online

About BBC World Service