CEBU CITY, Cebu — In its aim to raise the awareness on the dangers of mercury containing products, the Ban Toxics, a non-profit environment organization has recently launched a 16-minute video presentation about the harmful effects of the said element.

Entitled “Biyaheng Asoge” (Mercury Trip), the video shows the three forms of mercury, its serious threats to human health, the environment and wildlife.

Ban Toxics executive director Richard Gutierrez during the video launching said his group has been conducting surveys on the presence of mercury in the country and for this city, compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) was identified as a major source of mercury in every household.

“There is a low level of awareness on the toxicity of mercury in the household,” he said.

However, he pointed out the level of mercury presence here is minimal as compared to neighboring province like Negros that has a number of small-scale gold mining activities.

Gutierrez explained that the use of mercury among small-scale gold mining has been rampant where most of the miners are not aware about the level of toxicity of the said element that can cause serious poisoning and even death.

He recalled one sad mercury poisoning incident in the country that resulted to the death of Seth Cerillo in 2006.

The first year high schools student at St. Andrew’s School of Parañaque was poisoned when his science teacher used toxic elemental mercury for an experiment in their science laboratory.