This analysis is intended to support policy recommendations that will appear in the European Commission Mercury Strategy, which should also contain the main elements of a sustainability impact assessment (SIA), to be published in 2004 under the lead of the Commission’s Directorate General for Environment, DG Environment. The SIA needs to consider, among other things, such questions as whether there appears to be any increased environmental, health or other social risk due to the diffusion of mercury from decommissioned mercury cell chlor-alkali plants.Â
The overall goal of the UNEP Global Mercury Partnership is to protect human health and the environment from the releases of mercury.