Abstract
Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) of gold has adversely affected the environment and human health for decades, mostly due to excessive use of mercury. With the enactment of the zero mercury law, miners in Columbia began to replace mercury with cyanide and improve their processes. We analyzed the extraction dynamics, based on what had been identified in the municipality of Andes (Colombia) and indexed the pollutant loads of discharges from different small-scale mining gold plants. Gold production for the year 2022 in the municipality of Andes is predicted to total 9811.4 g. None of the sampled small-scale mines currently complies with the permissible parameters for ions and metals in industrial discharges; however, the contamination levels have been reduced for the: La Y mine by 18%, Dorado mine by 13.3%, El Molino by 8.6%, and La Soledad mine by 2.7%. This shows that the ASM operators in the municipality of Andes are beginning to implement cleaner production strategies.
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