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 current min eworkers were initially farmers that started to be involved in the activity to complete their revenues during dry season and later as resilience to climate change.