Mercury-containing and Rechargeable Battery Management Act
- Mercury-containing and Rechargeable Battery Management Act
The Mercury-containing and Rechargeable Battery Management Act (Public law 104-142) was enacted by President Bill Clinton in 1996. The purpose of the law was to phase out the use of mercury in batteries and to provide for the efficient and cost-effective collection and recycling or proper disposal of used nickel cadmium batteries, small sealed lead-acid batteries, and certain other batteries.
Effect
It reduced the incidence of heavy metals in municipal waste and in streams and ground water that resulted from the disposal of:
# mercury in single-use (primary cell) batteries
# toxic metal content such as lead from lead-acid batteries and the cadmium in rechargeable batteries, namely Ni-Cads
The sale of the first of these was banned (with the exception of the allowance of up to 25mg of mercury per button cell) and the second family of products was given specific labeling and disposal requirements.
As a result, most retailers who sell rechargeable and other special batteries will take the old ones back for free recycling and safe disposal. The not-for-profit Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation (RBRC) [http://www.rbrc.org/] , used by most retailers, reclaims the metals within the old batteries to make new products such as batteries (mercury, cadmium, lead) and stainless steel (nickel).
ee also
* Got Mercury?, a United States public awareness campaign about levels of the element mercury in seafood
* Mercury poisoning, a disease caused by exposure to the element mercury or its toxic compounds
* Mercury Policy Project, an organization that works to promote policies to control the distribution of the element mercury
* Mercury vacuum, a vacuum cleaner specifically designed to collect spills and vapors of the element mercury
* Minamata disease, industrial mercury pollution
* Niigata Minamata disease, industrial mercury pollution
References
* [http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/hazwaste/state/policy/pl104.pdf Statute text at EPA web site (PDF)]
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