M & Ms - Miners and Mercury :: essays research papers

Most miners of the Amazon lead a very polluted sort of demeanor. They pollute the environ ment they live inand they pollute themselves. The, "garimpeiros" asthe miners are called in Brazil are nonparasiticfarmers of the coin that flows beneath the rivers ofthe Amazon rain-forest. Their daily routine of earlymornings, extensive hard days, and late nights drinkingand taking cocaine contribute to their way of flavour.Their only goal in life is to drill for the gold splashwhich seems to collect at the bottoms of waterfallsthen intent the profits for illegal self indulgences likecocaine. To extract this gold dust they mustcombine mercury with the dust, and because of themercurys chemical make-up it is able to extract thegold from the useless rock and debris. The mercury,however, isnt the cleanest element for theenvironment. Many garimpeiros carelessly use themercury then dump it into the rivers polluting thewater and the food. Also, the dust from the mercurygets inhaled and have by the miners, contributingto their polluted way of life. All day dragas, whichare boats used for mining the bottom of rivers, arepulled to locations where gold is thought to befound, moving and polluting. Then there is thecommon drug use among these farmers. The precedenteven quotes a man named Lincoln, an owner of adraga, saying, "not that I bearing to cocaine. Its noworse than anything else, as far as I know, andaddicts make good workers." To sum thegarimpeiros way of life, they live a life of drinkingand drugs, women and murder. So the polluted wayof life is obvious, men acerbate the waters and thefood and then ultimately themselves, with the illegalactivities of the mining batch in Brazil.Although most do not realize their way of life andits defects, the struggling people of the Brazillianmining trade have special situations and majusculeaspirations. Most men are poor and the temptationto work as a garimpeiros is great. Their isnt muchwork other then tha t of an self-governing miner. Theirline of work has what the author describes as a,"free-spirited, picaresque hero." Most men aspireto inevitably find that big strike thats undecomposed around thecorner, then get out and raise a squeamish life,however, this isnt the typical case, most do not,