The Verkhovna Rada adopted the law on the abandonment of mercury

The Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian Parliament) adopted draft law No. 0199 "On the accession of Ukraine to the Minamata Convention on mercury" as a basis and in general.

This was reported by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine.

The draft law was submitted to the parliament by the resident Volodymyr Zelensky. The main goal of this initiative is to reduce risks for the countryʼs ecology and citizensʼ health. According to the Minister of Environmental Protection Ruslan Strilets, joining the convention will avoid such incidents as with the "Radykal" plant, when hundreds of tons of mercury ended up in the open air in the Ukrainian capital.

In addition, Ukraine will be able to solve this issue with the help of international partners. In particular, to solve problems with mercury residues at defunct post-Soviet enterprises that used outdated technologies.

Also, Ukraine will have access to the targeted resources of the Global Environmental Fund and will be able to receive technical and expert assistance.

Mercury will no longer be mined, and all products that contain or use mercury (thermometers and pressure gauges, certain types of batteries and fluorescent lamps, barometers, switches, relays, and even some cosmetics) will be banned.

• Since October 2013, 141 countries have signed the Minamata Convention. It was named after the city of Minamata in Japan, where almost two thousand people were poisoned by mercury from industrial wastewater in the late 1950s.
• The poisoning caused Minamata disease — a syndrome of impaired vision and hearing, and in severe cases paralysis and impaired consciousness, the cause of which is poisoning by organic mercury compounds.