Mercury News

March 2015 – EPA issued formal requests for information to five companies believed to be the primary recyclers/retorters and distributors of mercury in the United States. The purpose of these requests is to gain a better understanding of the mercury recycling marketplace and to clarify the amount of mercury used domestically in products and processes. Requests for information were sent to AERC Recycling Solutions, Bethlehem Apparatus Company, Inc., D.F. Goldsmith Chemical & Metal Corporation, Veolia Environmental Services, and Waste Management Mercury Waste Inc. This action is part of the Agency’s steps to implement the Mercury Products Strategy (PDF) issued in October 2014.

• Read the formal request for information (PDF) (7 pp, 1.5 MB, About PDF)

October 2014 – Mercury Products Strategy: - EPA released a strategy aimed to continue agency efforts to reduce mercury pollution, as part of

• the international commitments of the United States under the Minamata Convention and
• EPA's domestic efforts to reduce the production and use of products and certain processes that contain mercury.

Read the strategy (PDF).

September 2014 – EPA has proposed effluent limitation guidelines and standards under the Clean Water Act to help cut discharges of mercury-containing dental amalgam to the environment. The rule would require affected dentists to use best available technology (amalgam separators) and other best management practices to control mercury discharges to publicly-owned treatment works.

• News release
• Proposed Dental Amalgam Effluent Limitation Guidelines
• Comment period extended to February 20, 2015

September 2014 – Issuance of a report entitled Mercury Emissions Capture Efficiency with Activated Carbon Injection at a Russian Coal-Fired Thermal Power Plant (PDF) The report describes the results of an EPA-led project, conducted over several years in collaboration with various Russian institutes, the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and the Swedish Environmental Institute, to demonstrate mercury emission control efficiencies of activated carbon injection technologies at a Russian coal-fired power plant. In addition, the report provides the testing results of the leaching potential of the associated waste residues (assuming their disposal in a landfill).

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