NJ Coalition Targets Mercury Switches

A coalition that includes New Jersey auto recyclers, scrap processors, steel mills, pipe foundries and environmentalists is promoting legislation to codify the removal of mercury switches in the Garden State. The legislation asks auto makers to pay the tab for the removal of the switches.

The NJ Partnership for Mercury-Free Vehicles is seeking sponsors for legislation that would require the removal of mercury switches from end-of-life cars and trucks before the vehicles are crushed and melted down in steel mills and foundries. The group hopes its proposal will address New Jersey’s need to impose strict new limits on mercury emissions.

The coalition includes the state’s leading auto recyclers, auto shredders, steel mills and pipe foundries, as well as the New Jersey Environmental Federation, the New York/New Jersey Baykeeper, and Environmental Defense. Partnership members include: Camden Iron and Metal; Environmental Defense; Gerdau AmeriSteel/Perth Amboy and Sayreville; Griffin Pipe Products Co.; Hugo Neu Schnitzer East; the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries Inc. (ISRI); Mercer Group International of NJ; Metal Management Inc.; New Jersey Automotive Recyclers Association; New Jersey Environmental Federation; New York/New Jersey Baykeeper; and U.S. Pipe and Foundry Co.

In a study of mercury pollution, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) found that mercury switches used for convenience lighting and antilock brake systems  are a source of the problem. One way that mercury can pollute air and water is when end-of-life vehicles are melted down for recycling. Although New Jersey mills and foundries utilize emission-controls that meet current limits for mercury, the 75-percent mandated reduction announced last month by Governor James McGreevey is beyond the technical and financial capabilities of their recycling furnaces, according to industry officials.

“New Jersey is one of the nation’s leading recyclers of scrapped vehicles but our success story is at serious risk unless we can implement a solution that allows us to continue to melt vehicle hulks for new uses and also reduce mercury smokestack emissions,” says Fred Cornell, president of the New Jersey state chapter of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries Inc. (ISRI). “More than 5,000 jobs are at stake—from small auto recycling businesses and vehicle transporters to mills and foundries, some in continuous operation here for more than 200 years.”

The coalition says that a relatively simple and effective way to reduce mercury contamination is the removal of mercury switches from vehicles before melting. Legislation similar to that the group supports was enacted into law in Maine last year and is being considered in several other states including Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island.

It would require auto manufacturers to fund a DEP-approved program for the safe removal and disposal of the switches. The program also would require automakers to provide information on the location and safe removal of those switches containing mercury.

“Maine recognized the fact that the auto makers—not small auto recycling businesses—should be held responsible for the cost of locating, removing and storing mercury switches,” says Morris Silberman, president of the New Jersey Automotive Recyclers Association.

“Environmental groups and government agencies have been urging automakers to remove mercury and to design their products with recycling in mind,” Silberman says, “Despite promises beginning in 1995, major American automakers took until the end of 2002 to phase out the use of mercury light switches although non-mercury switches were available at only pennies more per switch.”

Cornell says the New Jersey steel industry has been very proactive on the mercury issue. A group of auto recyclers, shredders and steel mills, he said, is nearing completion of a DEP-partnered pilot study to determine the cost of removing mercury switches from vehicles and to estimate the amount of mercury reductions that can be expected when the switches are removed from end-of-life vehicles. Cornell said the industry is confident that the results will support that a switch-removal program should be required by legislation.

“It just makes sense to implement a simple and inexpensive system that removes a source of pollution rather than spending many millions of dollars after the fact trying to recapture it and possibly causing irreparable damage to the state’s metal recycling industry in the process,” he said.

“The Maine law, which is the model for the coalition’s legislation, was enacted despite opposition from the automakers lobby,” says Frank Brill, a spokesman for the coalition. “The automakers then challenged the law in federal court with Maine’s Attorney General defending it. A reviewing magistrate considered the arguments and has recommended that the law be upheld.”