When toxic chemicals refuse to die—An examination of the prolonged mercury pesticide use in Australia

Abstract

Mercury, even in low concentrations, is known to cause severe adverse human health effects. In the early 1900s, mercury became a popular fungicide ingredient, leading to multiple poisoning incidents that forced much of the world to act upon phasing out mercury use in agriculture. These incidents spurred the advancement of mercury science and the implementation of international policies and regulations to control mercury pollution worldwide. Despite these developments internationally, Australia continued using methoxyethyl mercury chloride as a fungicide to treat sugarcane against the fungi Ceratocystis paradoxa (pineapple disease). At the request of the manufacturer and following pressure from Australian researchers and the Minamata Convention on Mercury, Australian authorities announced a ban on mercury-containing pesticide in May 2020. Australia’s unique reluctance to act on controlling this hazardous pollutant makes it an interesting case study for policy inaction that runs counter to global policy trends and evidence-based decision making. As such, it can provide insights into the challenges of achieving multilateral agreement on difficult environmental issues such as global warming. In this review, I discuss the scientific development and policy decisions related to mercury fates and exposure of wildlife and humans in Australia to mercury used in pesticide. The historical uses of mercury pesticide and poisoning incidents worldwide are described to contextualize Australia’s delayed action on banning and controlling this chemical product compared to other nations. Regulations on mercury use in Australia, which has not ratified the Minamata Convention on mercury, are compared to those of major sugarcane and pesticide producer nations (Brazil, China, Japan, India, Thailand, and United States) which have ratified the Convention and replaced mercury pesticides with alternative products. I discuss how mercury regulations have the potential to protect the environment, decrease human exposure to mercury, and safeguard the ban on mercury products. Ratifying the Minamata Convention would give Australia equal footing with its international counterparts in global efforts to control global mercury pollution.

Lead contamination in Australian game meat

“…Australia has a history of overlooking heavy metal contamination that can impact on human health, and this trend has been observed for lead (Berger et al, 2019 ) as well as mercury (Hg) (Schneider, 2021 ). Australia has a large and diverse commercial game meat industry as well as extensive consumption of non-commercial game meat by recreational and indigenous hunters (Hampton et al, 2018 ).…”

Exposure to Persistent Organic Pollutants in Australian Waterbirds

“…Generally, OCPs had a low detection rate, but DDE exposure was still relatively high and consistent with worldwide literature, indicating that DDT breakdown products are still a global issue (Molina et al, 2021). In addition, there has been recent discussion of the dangerous nature of ongoing poorly related use of pesticides in Australia (Schneider, 2021). For example, there is ongoing use of the OCP dicofol, which is chemically related to DDT; and DDT is one of the intermediates used in its production (Weaver et al, 2012).…”

Genome-Based Characterization of Plant-Associated Rhodococcus qingshengii RL1 Reveals Stress Tolerance and Plant–Microbe Interaction Traits

“…Organomercury compounds were used in several agricultural applications, for example as common pest control agent in the 1900’s. Although its use has been banned in several countries, it is still used in Australia to treat the plant pathogenic fungus Ceratocystis paradoxa ( Schneider, 2021 ). Mercury resistant bacteria can convert organomercury compounds or Hg(II) to gaseous Hg(0) to reduce the mercury concentration in their environment ( Boyd and Barkay, 2012 ).…”