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How harmful is mercury?
Mercury is a highly toxic, persistent and bioaccumulative neurotoxin. Once released, mercury remains in the environment for years, dispersing over a wide area and accumulating in the tissues of plants, insects and animals, concentrating in creatures high on the food chain (e.g., humans). Health effects of mercury can be severe, particularly to a fetus in-utero and to young children age six and younger.
What are the health effects of mercury exposure?
Health effects from low doses of mercury include I.Q. deficits, developmental delays, impaired motor function, attention and behavioral problems, and vision damage. Exposure to higher doses of mercury can lead to: disturbances in sensations; impairment of speech, hearing and walking; mental disturbances; and, in some cases, death.
How is mercury used in automobiles?
Historically, mercury has been used most in convenience lighting - trunk and hood lights - and anti-lock brake applications. While these applications are being phased out, new uses, including mercury-vapor headlamps and backlit panel displays, have been introduced.
How many people are at risk?
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 390,000 children born in the U.S. each year are at risk for neurodevelopment problems because of exposure to mercury in the womb. Forty-one states have issued advisories warning pregnant women and other vulnerable populations to avoid eating fish from lakes and rivers contaminated by mercury. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration also issued an advisory warning pregnant women and those who may become pregnant not to eat certain salt-water fish, such as shark, swordfish, king mackerel, and tile fish.
How much mercury is in cars and trucks?
A single mercury switch used for lighting contains nearly one gram of mercury (the same amount found in a mercury thermometer), which is enough to contaminate a 20-acre lake if deposited from the atmosphere. Based on auto industry data, an estimated 170-200 metric tons of mercury is contained in the fleet of 250 million vehicles currently on the road in North America.
Which vehicles in the U.S. have mercury in them?
We don't know how many vehicle models have mercury in them because automakers have not made this information available to the public before the 2000 model year. However, most pre-1998 vehicles that contain hood or trunk lights are likely to contain mercury if they were produced by domestic automakers. International automakers stopped using the switches by 1993, following a ban on such uses in Europe.
Is there an alternative to mercury switches in automobiles?
Yes, mercury switches can easily be replaced by a less hazardous alternative - ball bearing switches - a simple, cost-effective way to reduce the amount of mercury in the environment. Ball bearing switches cost an average of ten cents more per switch.
Hasn't the use of mercury in vehicles almost been eliminated?
An estimated 4 million mercury switches were used in U.S. vehicles in 2000. While automakers claim that most mercury switches will be eliminated from new vehicles by the end of the 2002 model year, this will not resolve the problem caused by the millions of switches currently in vehicles on the road. Also, new automotive applications of mercury, including high intensity discharge (HID) headlamps and background lighting in automotive displays, currently are being introduced in both foreign and domestic vehicles.
Why is mercury in automobiles a problem?
A safe and effective program to collect mercury switches and other mercury-added automotive parts does not exist. The potential for the contamination of the recycling infrastructure and the release of mercury to the environment is an undeniable threat caused by the automakers' failure to address the end-of-life effects of their product.
Have the automakers proposed any solution to the mercury problem?
No. Automakers have stated that it is not their responsibility to manage the hazardous materials they designed into their products. They believe that recyclers should bear the cost of removing, collecting, transporting, storing, and recycling or disposing of the hazardous mercury components in vehicles. Automakers have not proposed, or supported, any comprehensive program to recover mercury from vehicles in the existing fleet of 250 million vehicles and continue to introduce new uses of mercury in vehicles despite its known health and environmental hazards.
Why should automakers be responsible for removing mercury from vehicles?
As a result of the automakers' continued decisions to use mercury in automotive applications, significant challenges have been created for the industries involved in end-of-life vehicle recycling. While automotive recyclers can play a part in removing mercury from automobiles, they should not bear the financial burdens of such a recovery and collection system. Automakers must be responsible for the design choices they make; thus they must take financial and organizational responsibility for the collection and recovery of mercury from all automobiles.
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