Nonprofit Specialist, Bernadette Mack, Hired as Managing Director FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Corvallis, OR, March 21, 2024 — Mercury Free Mining (MFM) has hired Bernadette Mack as its Managing Director – a new position within the seven-year-old nonprofit – as part of its planned expansion of programming and outreach. With her extensive experience in both the nonprofit sector and the jewelry industry, Mack brings … Read More
GIA Funds Second Round of Groundbreaking Research for Miners
New Grant Awarded to the Alliance for Responsible Mining & Mercury Free Mining for Goldrop® Program FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Carlsbad, Calif., February 15, 2024 – The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) has awarded a $93,000 grant to deploy the Goldrop®, an innovative technology that eliminates the need for mercury use by artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM), in three Colombian … Read More
Introducing Mercury Free Mining Eco-Prosperity Initiative
Merging Sustainable Gold Mining and Community Empowerment Mayata, Sierra Leone 2023-2024 Mercury Free Mining (MFM) has been working toward the eradication of mercury pollution in artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) since 2017 and recognized as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit since 2019. We have been educating and engaging the jewelry industry in taking action to reduce and eliminate mercury use among … Read More
A journey through Sierra Leone
I’m delighted to share that Mickey Brookshire and I have been in Sierra Leone West Africa for a week now, taking an unprecedented step towards implementing alternatives to mercury use in gold mining, a research mission to bring the Goldrop technology to artisanal and small-scale miners throughout Sierra Leone’s gold mining regions. As you may know, research funded by the … Read More
Update on Coodmilla Gold Ore Testing
EXCITING NEW DEVELOPMENTS Since December of last year, MFM and the Alliance for Responsible Mining (ARM) have been exploring opportunities to connect innovative green mining technologies with interested artisanal and small-scale mining (ASGM) communities to help them mine more efficiently and profitably, ending their need to use mercury. In a coordinated initiative between ARM, MFM, and Coodmilla, Ltda., a gold … Read More
CIBJO president’s message about COVID-19 – and our response
April 29, 2020 Dear Dr. Cavalieri, Thank you for your invitation to collaborate on designing our industry’s path forward so we can thrive in a novel, post-COVID world. We’re certainly in a different world from when I began my jewelry career more than 50 years ago as a designer-goldsmith. In 1966 gold cost $35 an ounce, 2% of its current price, … Read More
In Quest to End Mercury Use in Gold Mining, Field Tests of Safer Goldrop Method Prove Positive
The Goldrop process was tested among small scale gold miners in Ghana, West Africa Mercury-Free Mining, a nonprofit dedicated to eliminating the use of mercury in artisanal and small-scale gold mining, announced that field tests of Goldrop, a mercury-free gold separation process, proved positive enough to merit further testing and refinement. The testing took place among small-scale miners in Ghana, … Read More
New Tech May End Horror of Mercury Use in Artisanal Gold Mining
Mercury Free Mining to Field Test New GOLDROP Equipment in Ghana It is estimated that millions of artisanal gold miners in developing countries pan for gold using mercury and in the process release nearly 8,000 lbs. of the toxic metal into the environment every day. Mercury pollution is increasing around the world and is devastating to the physiological and neurological … Read More