1. Introduction
Cyanide is a strong toxic chemical frequently used in variousindustrial processes, including synthetic fibre production, extrac-tion of gold and silver, coal processing and extractive metallurgy.
In the mining industry, cyanide is also widely used to recover gold residues after mercury amalgamation .
The use of cyanide in artisanal small scale gold mining (ASGM) is widespread in West-Africa, particularly in Burkina Faso .
The majority of currentmineworkerswere initially farmers that started to be involved in the activity to complete their revenues during dry season and later as resilience to climate change.