Mercury Reduction Program

The Mercury Reduction Program uses a variety of tools, including partnerships between the Department and seventeen Wisconsin communities, educational outreach, and innovative reduction and recycling activities to reach its goal of reducing mercury in the environment.

The goals of the program are to 1). Reduce the use of mercury, 2). Promote mercury recycling, and 3). Reduce mercury spills. This program was initiated in 1998. Outreach activities include:

Medical

Healthcare facilities contain mercury in a lot of their medical equipment (e.g. pressure gauges, thermometers), laboratory reagents, and common facility items (e.g., fluorescent lights, thermostats, cleaning supplies). Mercury spills in hospitals are not uncommon due to the large amount of mercury used in a wide variety of products all over the facility. Besides the occasional spill, mercury devices and other mercury wastes are often incinerated with medical waste, which emits mercury directly into the environment. The American Hospital Association and the Environmental Protection Agency have signed a Memorandum of Understanding for hospitals to become mercury-free by 2005. To reach this goal Wisconsin communities are organizing workshops to educate hospital personnel (including doctors, nurses, environmental and safety coordinators, and equipment purchasers) about the issue of mercury and the need for alternatives.

• For general information about mercury in hospitals visit Mercury in Medical Facilities [exit DNR].
• For guides to eliminate mercury in healthcare facilities visit Mercury in Buildings and Equipment [exit DNR] and Reducing Mercury Use in Health Care [exit DNR].
• For a list of mercury-free alternatives for the healthcare industry, visit Sustainable Hospitals [exit DNR].
• For general instructions for reducing medical waste, visit the Hospital Waste Reduction Checklist [PDF exit DNR].
• For more information on medical waste, contact Medical Waste Coordinator.

Dental

The main sources of mercury from dental offices is from the amalgam. However, mercury is also found in common items, like fluorescent lights, thermometers, and thermostats. The Department teamed up with the Wisconsin Dental Association to create a Best Management Practices Guide for recycling amalgam wastes. This guidance was sent to WDA member dentists and is being promoted at local WDA meetings.

Schools

Schools have mercury mostly in the science labs, but also in common items around the facility, like fluorescent light, thermostats, and thermometers in the nurse’s office. A set of teaching activities was developed for teachers in order to educate the students about the mercury. These teaching activities have the potential to reduce mercury in both schools and homes, assuming students take the knowledge with them. To download a copy of the set of teaching activities, visit EEK!.

Besides promoting these teaching activities, communities are also holding workshops for teachers to educate them about mercury and to teach them how to teach their students about mercury. Some communities have even held special collections at schools in which schools can receive money in exchange for their mercury devices. Milwaukee conducted such a collection in 2000 in which 32 schools participated and over 300 pounds of mercury were collected. Superior conducted a similar collection program in 2001 in 10 counties surrounding Lake Superior. Thirty-five schools participated and over 150 pounds of mercury were collected. In early 2003, Appleton, DePere, Green Bay, Heart of the Valley MSD, Neenah-Menasha MSD and Grand Chute Menasha West conducted a collection modeled after Milwaukee and Superior's successful bounty collections. Eleven schools participated and 70 pounds of of mercury were collected and recycled.

The Wisconsin Green Schools program is a new web based, voluntary program available to all public and private K-12 schools across Wisconsin. The program encourages teachers, staff, and students to work together to use the school, its grounds, and the whole community as learning tools to help teach sound environmnetal practices and promote environmental sustainability. For more information, visit Wisconsin Green Schools Program.

• For more information about mercury in schools visit Mercury in Schools [exit DNR]
• For more information on mercury spills in Wisconsin schools, visit Wisconsin School Spills.

Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning

HVAC wholesalers and contractors sell and install mercury-containing thermostats. Three major thermostat manufacturers established the Thermostat Recycling Corporation, which offers free thermostat recycling to HVAC wholesalers. After a contractor removes a mercury-containing thermostat from a building, it is dropped off in a recycling bin at a wholesaler and once the bin fills up, it is shipped off to a recycling facility. Not only is this program free and simple, but the Department has also created an incentive for wholesalers and contractors that choose to participate. If they pledge to recycle thermostats they get certificates and pledge patches, both of which are good customer relations tools.

• For more information on thermostat recycling, the pledge program and pledge participants visit: Mercury Thermostat Reduction and Recycling

Dairy Farms

On March 31, 2007 the Cooperative Environmental Assistance Bureau concluded a project to collect mercury-filled manometers that were used to measure vacuum pressure in dairy cow milking systems. The dairy mercury manometer replacement program was very successful in replacing 454 manometers with a non mercury gauge and removing 82 manometers from farms that were no longer milking cows. Each manometer contained about 12 ounces of mercury in an open-ended, 30-inch U-shaped tube which equates to approximately 400 pounds of mercury removed from Wisconsin’s dairy farms.

Farmers that chose to replace their mercury-filled manometer with a mercury-free gauge received a $200 reimbursement from the DNR. The farmer's regular dairy equipment service provider performed the replacement to assure that the mercury is safely handled and that the new gauge is accurately installed. If the farmer was no longer milking cows, but still had a manometer in the barn, the DNR paid a service provider $100 to find and remove it.

Grant money from the Great Lakes National Program Office (GLNPO) and the Great Lakes Protection Fund funded the project. The reimbursement incentive encouraged dealers to seek out dairy farmers and convince them to install a reliable non-mercury gauges. DNR partnered with the University of Wisconsin and the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection to increase project credibility, locate mercury-filled manometers, and reduce manometer collection costs.

Auto and Scrap Recycling

Wisconsin initiated a Mercury Switch Recycling Program with help from Concerned Auto Recyclers of Wisconsin (CARS), the Wisconsin Chapter of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (WISRI), and the Cooperative Compliance Programs (CCPs) to remove and recycle mercury-containing switches from end-of-life vehicles (ELV) before they are smelted.

Hood and trunk lighting switches commonly contain mercury, accounting for 87% of the mercury within vehicles. (Anti-lock braking system, navigational displays, and headlights may also contain mercury.) U.S. automakers ended their use of these switches in new vehicles beginning with model year 2003. International automakers stopped using mercury switches by 1993.

Between 2001 - 2004, participants [PDF 39KB] in the Mercury Switch Recycling Program removed and recycled over 500 pounds of mercury from ELV. To participate in this program or for more detailed information, view Mercury Switch Recycling Program or contact:

Mark Harings
Auto and Scrap Recycling Sector Specialist
Email: mark.harings@wisconsin.gov
Phone: 715-831-3263

Thermometers

Many fever, basal, lab, and candy/deep fry thermometers contain mercury. The mercury reduction communities hold numerous thermometer exchanges for the public and businesses in which mercury thermometers can be exchanged for free digital thermometers. Also, some parts of Wisconsin, like Dane County, the city of Racine, the city of Ashland, and the city of Superior, are banning the sale of mercury thermometers. Other cities to take this action include San Francisco, Boston, and Duluth. Many major retailers (e.g. Target, Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Toys-R-Us, Walgreens) have also banned the sale of mercury thermometers.

2005 Mercury Thermometer Collection Grants

The United States Environmental Protection Agency has given a grant to the Department of Natural Resources to enable Wisconsin medical facilities and communities to collect mercury thermometers from homes and schools. These grants will only fund outreach and disposal. The funds cannot be used for incentives (e.g. digital thermometers) or for disposal of mercury products from medical facilities. For more information, please see: Waste & Materials Management Program.

Households

Mercury is found in many items around the house (see interactive diagram in "Sources and Alternatives" section). To encourage recycling and the use of mercury-free alternatives, communities have implemented a free Wisconsin Mercury Recycling Program for household mercury wastes (see "Disposal" section above for more details). Many communities also have thermometer exchanges, in which mercury thermometers can be exchanged for a free digital thermometer. Visit Health Care Without Harm [exit DNR] for a guide on how to hold a thermometer exchange. Other outreach to the household sector includes informative mercury displays at local fairs and conventions.

Mercury Collections/Recycling

The mercury reduction communities sponsored free and low-cost mercury collections for households and businesses. Over 5,000 pounds of mercury were collected in a 1998 Mercury Roundup and 6,600 pounds were collected in the 1999-2001 recycling program.

The total for the collections held by Wisconsin communities in 2002 yielded 970 pounds of mercury. The total amount of mercury collected and recycled through these programs along with the Dairy Mercury Manometer Replacement Program and the Auto Switch Recovery Program in Wisconsin is 13,000 pounds over the last five years. These represent the largest public collections of mercury-containing products in the United States to date. Further, almost all the products collected for recycling were permanently replaced with non-mercury devices.

Legislation

The DNR and some of the mercury reduction communities are working on mercury product sales bans (the sale of mercury thermometers has been banned in Dane County, City of Racine, City of Ashland, and nationally by most major retail stores). WDNR is in the process of writing rules to reduce mercury emissions from electric utilities (WI will be the first state to establish such rules).

• Visit DNR's Wisconsin's Mercury Emissions Reduction Rule