Mercury Policy Project: Mercury Rising - Reducing global emissions from burning mercury-added products
February 2009
This assessment has been prepared for the Mercury Policy Project/Tides Center and is being co-released by the Zero Mercury Working Group (ZMWG), Ban Toxics! and the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA).
Project objective
The atmospheric mercury (Hg) emissions from waste have long been inadequately understood and seriously underestimated. This report scrutinizes the largest contributor to mercury in the waste stream – mercury-added products – and greatly improves our global understanding of this source of emissions.
Report recommendations
The magnitude of mercury releases to air from sources involving the combustion, both controlled and uncontrolled, of mercury-added products attests to the need for globally coordinated actions to phase out the manufacture, sale and use of such products.
Toward that end, it is recommended that the United Nations Environment Program Governing Council take the following steps at its February 2009 meeting in Nairobi:
1) Establish an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) for the purpose of negotiating a free-standing legally binding instrument on mercury that shall include, in part, provisions to phase out as soon as possible the use of mercury in the manufacture of products for which viable non-mercury alternatives are available, such as measuring devices, batteries, and switches, recognizing that the time frames for such phase-outs may differ depending upon the product and the circumstances of the different countries.
2) Request that UNEP, in the interim period before such an instrument becomes effective, assume responsibility for the awareness-raising, analytical, technical and legal support activities necessary to encourage manufacturers of mercuryadded products, and countries where such manufacturers are located, to identify and implement the actions needed to shift production toward mercury-free alternative products.
3) Recognize that combustion of mercury-added products in incinerators, landfill fires and open burning of domestic waste is a significant contributor of mercury and other toxics to both local and global ecosystems, and urge countries to take steps to stop these practices and to move expeditiously towards safe, just, sustainable and more environmentally-sound alternatives.
4) Request that UNEP take account of the additional emissions identified in this report in its revision of the draft AMAP/UNEP (2008) Technical Background Report to the Global Atmospheric Mercury Assessment.