Recycling program: Lawmaker earns House nod for amended Senate bill
OLYMPIA – Dangerous mercury waste keeps popping up in everyone’s world and state Rep. Sam Hunt is continuing his mission to subdue this public-health and safety menace in all its many forms.
Hunt marshaled support in the House of Representatives yesterday (Tuesday, March 2, 2010) for legislation establishing a producer-financed product-stewardship program for collecting, recycling, and disposing mercury-containing fluorescent lights. The vote was 71-27. He said he hopes the Senate will go along with House amendments to the bill and send it on to the governor’s desk.
Hunt, D-Olympia (22nd Legislative District), said Senate Bill 5543 requires producers of mercury-containing fluorescent lights to participate in a product-stewardship program and fully implement the program by Jan. 1, 2013. The sale of bulk mercury would be prohibited by June 30, 2012. The Senate measure is the vehicle for the directions outlined in Hunt’s companion legislation: House Bill 2914.
“We need this statewide recycling program for compact fluorescent lights and fluorescent tubes,” said Hunt, who has prime-sponsored similar mercury-recycling legislation this year and in years gone by.
“Tens of millions of these lamps are being sold, and when their life is exhausted that leaves hundreds of pounds of mercury. We need to get this recycling program started now for very clear and present reasons of public health and safety.”
The House-amended measure adds the statewide requirement to recycle mercury-containing lights by Jan. 1, 2013, and prohibits disposal of mercury-containing lights in waste incinerators or landfills. The bill provides that no-cost mercury-recycling will become available statewide.
Hunt noted that “stakeholders have labored to make sure this House-amended Senate bill can go forward in this year’s session. The proposal strikes a good balance between a producer-funded program using services currently available and having the Department of Ecology contract with an organization to run the program using the new funding mechanism.”
Hunt’s mercury-cleanup legislation from 2003 “has worked well in launching our duty to address the problem of mercury-containing products. But one area that is still a dilemma is mercury-containing lights. I’ve worked on mercury reduction legislation since 2002, and this is the last major piece of legislation to remove highly toxic mercury from our environment.”
“Product stewardship puts the responsibility to manage a product throughout its life cycle with those who most benefit from the product – the producer and the user,” Hunt said. “Producer-funded disposal is the most sustainable and appropriate mechanism to ensure a strong, and energy-efficient lighting industry.”
He pointed out that upcoming federal standards will phase out incandescent light bulbs in 2012 so the timing this year is right. Recycling of mercury-containing lighting is about 20 percent overall and only about two percent for residents and small businesses.
“We’re seeing a lot of this type of lighting going straight into the trash and ending up in landfills,” he said. “What we’re after in this year’s legislation is convenient and free recycling for residents and small businesses and school districts. The idea is to drive up the recycling of mercury-containing lights, curtail what goes into landfills, and cut consumer and disposal worker’s exposure to the harmful effects of this stuff.”
Hunt stated that “it simply makes good sense that recycling mercury products should be as easy to do as buying them in the first place.”