A surge in the price of mercury has seen rundown mines reopen in China's 'mercury capital' - a hilly region between Guizhou and Hunan - despite the heavy environmental consequences.
With Europe and the United States set to ban exports of the highly toxic metal, miners are returning at sites in Wan Shan, a county in eastern Guizhou, and the adjacent county of Xinhuang in western Hunan, more than a year after they were closed.
The price of mercury has shot up from US$600 a flask (34.5kg) at the end of last year to more than US$1,000 a flask in the past week, thanks to dwindling global supplies and strong demand, partly driven by gold mining. Mercury is used in the extraction of gold.
Another factor is rising global demand for compact fluorescent lamps that are believed to be energy efficient. It takes 2 to 5 milligrams of mercury to make one of these light bulbs. Consumers in the European Union will be compelled to buy energy-efficient light bulbs from 2012.
The region of Wan Shan, or Ten Thousand Hills, accounted for 60 per cent of China's mercury output in recent decades and helped the nation to repay much of its debt to the Soviet Union.
Workers of Hengjia Mining Limited are now busy pumping out water from a mine in Fangjiatun, a township of Xinhuang, so that production can resume. Their supervisor, who declined to give his full name, said the company was optimistic that mercury prices would rise further.
'Prices are going up fast. If we are lucky and strike mercury ores soon, we'll make a fortune,' he said.
