Before junked cars are reborn as new steel, their batteries, fenders and other salvageable parts are stripped from the carcass, which then gets shipped to recyclers. Gasoline, freon, transmission fluid and other environmental hazards are extracted.
But one hazardous material has been widely overlooked: one-gram pellets of mercury in switches that, in some cars, activate trunk lights or anti-lock brake systems.
The switches should be removed, regulators say, because of growing health concerns about mercury. In Pennsylvania, recycled steel is the second-leading source of mercury emissions, with the unrecovered car switches accounting for most of the mercury. Only coal-fired power plants put more mercury in the state’s environment, according to Nicholas DiPasquale, a deputy secretary of Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection.
Steelmakers could capture the mercury by installing costly pollution control equipment on the furnaces where recycled steel is melted. But DiPasquale, along with automakers, steelmakers, scrap dealers and environmentalists agree it would cost a lot less if dismantlers removed the switches at the same time they pulled other parts from junked cars.
But that’s where the agreement ends.
Everyone but the carmakers thinks dismantlers should be compensated for cleaning up the problem.
"We don’t believe it’s burdensome in any way on the dismantler," said Charles Territo, spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.
Last month, the industry group was the lone dissenter to a voluntary DEP plan that will pay Pennsylvania dismantlers $1 for each mercury switch they remove. Unlike in Maine, where automakers are required by law to pay $1 for the switches, the bounty for the two-year experiment will come from $250,000 in discretionary DEP funds, not the car industry.
"I think they’re being extremely shortsighted," DiPasquale said of the carmakers. "A buck is really a token amount and we’re really not looking at the alliance to provide that funding."
Dismantlers wouldn’t expect to be reimbursed if they could get something for the switches. But unlike fenders or radiators, no one wants the switches. In fact, recyclers charge customers for taking mercury devices off their hands. Unless there’s an incentive to remove them, it’s easier for dismantlers to pass them along with the rest of their scrap.
Mike Berk, executive director of the Pennsylvania Automotive Recycling Trade Society, said he couldn’t find anyone is his group who was removing mercury switches.
Berk’s group represents dismantlers and supports DEP’s voluntary plan. So do AERC.com and Bethlehem Apparatus, mercury recyclers who will keep track of how many switches are removed and tell DEP how much dismantlers should be paid. The steel and recycling industries as well as the Clean Air Council also support the plan, pledging to inform members and provide materials and programs to spread the word.
Under the DEP program, dismantled mercury switches are shipped in bins to mercury recyclers, who either resell the mercury or have safe means for disposing of it.
"It’s just good for the environment," said James Kreitzer, owner of Cumberland Auto Salvage outside Harrisburg.
Mercury is highly toxic and once released, remains in the environment for years. Exposure to high levels of mercury can cause brain damage or death.
Kreitzer learned about the issue while snowmobiling in Maine and has been voluntarily documenting how long it takes to remove a switch for the DEP. He said in the best circumstances it will take three or four minutes. A similar study by Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality concluded it takes an average of 95 seconds to remove a switch from a car, then remove the mercury from the switch. Dismantlers disagree, noting that the number and location of switches varies from model to model. Moreover, removing switches from cars damaged in collisions takes more time.
But for dismantlers, there’s a more fundamental issue: they didn’t create the mess.
"The pressure has to be put on auto makers to do what’s responsible," said George Eliades, executive vice president of the Automotive Recyclers Association. "They created the problem in the first place."
He and other critics say the problem wouldn’t be so large if domestic carmakers followed the lead of foreign producers, who removed mercury switches in the 1990s. American automakers continue to use small amounts of mercury in switches for convenience lighting.
Territo, the carmaker’s spokesman, defends the industry’s record on mercury. He said that by the end of 2002 automakers had lived up to their 1995 promise to drop mercury switches in hood lights and anti-lock brake systems as models were phased out. Meanwhile, many other common products also contain mercury, he adds.
"We believe the industry is ahead of the curve," Territo said. "In order to deal with the problem, all consumer products need to be addressed, not just automobiles."
DiPasquale said the state will go ahead with the two-year program, substituting state money for up to $100,000 auto makers were going to contribute for educating dismantlers and other costs.
But the two-year effort will only put a dent in the problem. A 2001 study by environmental groups and the University of Tennessee estimated that cars on the road then contained about 200 tons of mercury in switches and that only 10 tons of it are recycled each year.
DiPasquale estimates it will take seven to 15 years before cars with the switches that are currently on road make their way to the recycling bin. Unless the voluntary experiment is extended, legislation mandating their removal or some other program will have to be devised.
"We need to get control of it," DiPasquale said.
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