Hunt for gold in Southeast Asia poisons child workers, environment

At 16, Romnick has worked half his life in the meager family business: searching for gold in the remote mining region of Camarines Norte about 200 miles southeast of Manila. One of his jobs is to incinerate the mercury, and, on this occasion, he produced a button-sized lump of nearly pure gold. He is uncertain whether to believe the smoke is dangerous. “I have been doing this since I was 8 years old,” he said. “I do it every day now. I don’t know if the mercury contains poison. No one has ever told me that.” Read More: