Costs of Health Damage from Atmospheric Emissions of Toxic Metals: Part 2-Analysis for Mercury and Lead

In this part of the series we explain the detailed literature review and the calculations of impacts and damage costs of mercury and lead. Methodology and general assumptions are explained in the companion article, Part 1 of this series, and the spreadsheet with the calculations is available as a supplementary file of Part 1.³ For mercury, the damage cost is 22,937 €₂₀₁₃ /kg if there is a no-effect threshold, 52,129 €₂₀₁₃ /kg if there is none; 91% is due to mortality from heart disease, the rest from loss of IQ points. For lead, the damage cost is 29,343 €₂₀₁₃ /kg, about 80% due to mortality and 20% due to IQ loss; there does not seem to be a no-effect threshold. These costs are per kg of emitted pollutant.