About the Campaign

For Release:

Mercury – Free: You, Me and Babies

IPEN launched the Mercury-Free Campaign to address the alarming level of human and environmental health threats posed by mercury around the world. Through the Campaign, IPEN is aiming to build a robust base of civil society and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working to raise awareness about mercury threats and support the development of a strong global treaty to eliminate or significantly reduce these threats. Participating NGOs from all over the world work together to share information, experiences and capacities with the aim of promoting international policy changes, national heavy metals policy awareness, and other actions targeted at advancing a non-toxic environment agenda.

A Global Mercury Treaty, not a Minamata Convention

IPEN suggests the pending global mercury treaty to not be named the Minamata Convention. This is because it appears to us that the new treaty will not likely be sufficient to:

  1. Prevent future Minamata tragedies from happening in the world
  2. Ensure that victims of future mercury tragedies will not suffer the same fate as the Minamata victims
  3. Reverse the current and alarming trend of rising levels of global methyl mercury pollution.

See IPEN Note to Mercury Treaty Negotiation Delegates: Arabic | English | Chinese | French | Japanese | Portuguese | Russian | Spanish

IPEN Participating Organizations in action across the globe – view letters submitted in the following countries: Algeria | Argentina | Bahrain | Bangladesh | Belarus | Brazil | Cameroon | Canada -1, 2 |  Central African Republic | Chad | Chile | China | Côte d’Ivoire | Czech Republic | Democratic Republic of the Congo | Gabon | Egypt | India – 1, 2, 3 | Iraq | Jamaica | Jordan | Kuwait | Lebanon | Lybia | Madagascar | Mexico | Moldova | Morocco | Nepal | New Zealand | Niger | Oman | Qatar | Romania | Russia | Saoudi Arabia | South Africa | Spain | Sri Lanka | Sudan | Tunisia | Uganda |Uruguay | USA | Venezuela | Yemen | EU

Learn more: Honoring Minamata

The objectives of the Mercury-Free Campaign are to:

► Raise awareness about mercury exposure and safer alternatives;

► Reach-out to and educate and engage public interest and civil society organizations to promote mercury-free policies with their local and national decision-makers; and

► Promote a strong global mercury treaty to be adopted in 2013.

Activities carried out within this Campaign include:

► Mercury monitoring activities such as surveys on mercury-containing products and the availability of mercury-free alternatives, etc.;

► Capacity building: Civil Society Organization and NGO trainings (see An NGO Introduction to Mercury Pollution);

► Promoting the need for sound chemicals management and national and international policy changes by awareness-raising campaigns;

► Promoting NGO policy engagement by global civil society and enhancing the dialogue between NGOs and decision-makers (See IPEN Views on a Global Mercury Treaty);

► Developing and distributing publications with relevant scientific data on mercury;

► Supporting NGOs in developing countries and countries with economies in transition across Asia, Africa, Central/Eastern Europe and Latin America in improving chemical safety;

► Supporting programs or activities that link to international mercury discussions; and

► Providing a frame for Civil Society contributions to the Global Mercury Treaty process by tracking global activities and developing global NGO reports as contributions to international meetings.

Please check the other pages of this site for information about activities supporting the Campaign and helpful resource materials. For specific activities carried out by individual NGOs, please see the Activities and Locations page.

Awareness-raising activity in the Philippines urging the public not to burn or dump mercury lamp waste. (Photo: Gigie Cruz)

How to Join:

If you would like to join or support the Campaign, please contact: ipen@ipen.org

Comments are closed.