Water pollution: mercury

There have been several registered events of water pollution in Japan. The worst of these is the water pollution with mercury in 1932 at the Chisso chemicals plant. The plant emptied mercury into the waters of Minimata Golf in Japan. Mercury is particularly dangerous because it accumulates in marine life, final leading to mercury poisoning of the population.

 In 1952 in the population started appearing symptoms of mercury poisoning almost all being thought to be related to mercury-polluted fish and not due to the consumption of water polluted with mercury (methyl mercury to be exact).

 In total 500 deaths were registered in the 1950s due to water pollution with mercury, but the release of mercury in Japan’s bay didn’t stop until 1968. The fact is that the water pollution of the golf with mercury is still going on, due to the accumulated mercury in the sediments at the bottom. No mercury-related deaths have been reported since.

After the incident, Japan has the strictest water pollution acts in the industrial world and the symptoms related to water pollution with mercury have been known since then as the Minamata syndrome.