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Mercury Legislation
We had a busy spring working on our mercury campaigns at MPA, including mercury clean-up at Holtrachem and work on a number of bills in the state legislature.
One of the most exciting bills, LD 1792, addresses the problem of mercury in old thermostats. Currently, thermostats still hanging on walls in Maine contain over 5,600 pounds of mercury! This important bill requires the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to develop a financial rebate for those people who recycle mercury thermostats. It also sets goals for the collection and recycling of mercury-added thermostats in future years.
Will Pierce, an MPA member from Kittery, offered public testimony before the Natural Resources Committee in support of LD 1792. Will spoke about this bill from the standpoint of an everyday Mainer. In his work, Will interacts with many people who demolish old houses and frequently find mercury added thermostats. He told the members of the committee that a hardworking person spending his or her day demolishing houses might not make the extra effort to recycle a thermostat that has three grams of mercury in it. But, Will added, if workers demolishing homes received a five dollar refund for recycling a thermostat, the equivalent of a free ham sandwich, they might be more likely to take the extra step to eliminate a potential source of mercury pollution. Will’s testimony provided an economic reason for why a refund for people who recycle thermostats makes sense (and he got a good laugh from almost every member of the committee while doing so). The bill passed unanimously and was signed by the Governor on April 10th.
In this session we also supported LD 1338, a bill that would have banned mercury added dental amalgams over the course of 3 years. The bill was amended before eventually passing in a form that simply requires any person who supplies mercury amalgam to dentists in Maine to report the amount of amalgam supplied to the DEP.
A final bill that we worked on this session was LD 1058. This bill eventually passed in a form that bans mercury-added button cell batteries. Many products that we use everyday contain small batteries that have mercury in them. These batteries are in common novelty products, such as greeting cards, children’s shoes, and even spinning, light-up lollypops!
Join us in the campaign for a cleaner, safer Maine
MPA members meet regularly to plan our environmental campaign. If you'd like to get involved, call Adam at 990-0672.