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Toxics:
Mercury Switch Recovery

Our Position: support
Bill Number: SB550
Sponsor: Sen. Dr. Don Thomas
Legislative Session: 2006

Yet another source of mercury in Georgia waters is from auto salvage operations which routinely chop, shred and crush automobiles for recycling, without first removing any mercury switches from the discarded vehicles.  SB 550 requires the recovery of mercury switches when cars are recyled. It will impose a fee on auto manufacturers to be paid to vehicle recyclers to cover some of the cost of removing these switches, collecting and packaging them for mercury recovery, and for maintaining the paperwork necessary to assure that the devices are being removed from the environment.

Status

The bill has been placed on the Senate Rules Calendar for the 30^th DAY, but near the bottom, and its passage, in any form, is far from assured.

Action Needed

If Dr. Thomas gets lucky Monday and is able to pass his bill, SB 550, on Monday 03/13/06, Sierrans need to be prepared to support the bill in the House.  

Background

Senator Dr. Don Thomas, of Dalton, who outlawed much indoor cigarette smoking in GA in the 2005 session, is taking on another toxic chemical that is far too common in our environment.  Mercury so abounds in GA that there are fish consumption advisories for mercury across the state.  Two years ago, the EPA and FDA issued a joint warning to pregnant women, women who may become pregnant and nursing mothers against eating certain types of mercury-laden fish, .  The state’s very largest source of mercury is from the coal burning power plants of the GA Power Co., which send enormous volumes of the liquid metal into the air constantly, when it is freed from coal being burned to generate steam to drive turbine-generator sets. 

The state also still has one of the nation’s oldest chlorine plants, Olin Chemicals, in Augusta, which continues to use obsolescent processes to manufacture chlorine for bleaching in the textile and pulp and paper industries for a handful of customers who have also failed to modernize processes.

Similar bills have passed in other states, including North Carolina in 2005, and the auto industry has stopped using mercury switches for the most part, but a considerable fleet of vehicles equipped with them is still in service, and will be scrapped over the coming years, so the bill should prevent significant amounts of mercury from reaching streams in stormwater runoff from salvage yards and metal recycling facilities.   Naturally, the auto manufacturers and car dealers are likely to oppose Dr. Thomas’s bill, because it will cost them $6 to $10 per switch, a sum they will have to pay to the vehicle recyclers.