Mercury extraction rate for the world and a Verhulst function fit to the data.
L. David Roper
http://arts.bev.net/RoperLDavid/
21 December 2007
Mercury is mainly used in scientific instruments.The graph below shows the mercury extraction data for the world and three Verhulst function fits to the data in order to extrapolate into the future.
Mercury extraction rate for the world and a Verhulst function fit to the data.
The red curve is a fitted with total amount to be extracted of 1000x10^3 tonnes, the blue curve is for a fit with two Verhulst functions and the green curve is for a fit with three Verhulst functions. It appears that mercury is highly depleted. There may be some more extraction peaks, probably smaller than previous peaks.
Dividing the extraction curve above by the projected world population (asymptote ~1010), one gets:
Although t he recycling peak was at ~1970, the per-capita peak was at year ~1875.