Kalimantan, Indonesia

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Mercury poisoning is barbaric; it can cause formication, tachycardia, and even have your skin shred itself from your body. In can cause sensory impairment and the effects on younger children are even more varied. Kalimantan is a gold-mining hotspot on Borneo where most of the ore is mixed with mercury. Local smelters buy the newly-mined gold and burn off the mercury to leave the pure gold behind. However, by doing this in their own homes, therefore trapping the extremely poisonous gas inside, they invariably cause serious damage their own health. The gold mining industry here provides a livelihood for thousands of people on the island but decades of persistent mining and interaction with mercury has poisoned a great number of the population. Such a dense concentration of mercury will cause irreparable damage to the health of any who live in that area; making it a terribly hazardous environment.

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