Mercury - Time to Act

“Our main aim is to reduce or eliminate anthropogenic emissions and releases of mercury.”

UNINTENDED EMISSIONS

About half of the global anthropogenic mercury emis- sions come from the burning of coal, metals production and the production of cement.What concretemechanisms exist to address this? – The control of mercury emissions from major sources has been one of the key areas of discussion in the intergovern- mental negotiations. Various mechanisms and approaches to reduce mercury emissions have been discussed and discus- sions continue on a variety of measures including the use of best available techniques and best environmental practices, the use of emission limit values, the establishment of national goals and the use of national implementation plans to set out action plans for managing emissions. It should also be recog- nized that many countries already have controls in place to reduce mercury emissions – either as stand-alone controls, or as part of a multipollutant strategy.

– In relation to the use of mercury in some compact fluores- cent lamps, at this stage, no affordable and available alterna- tive is currently available at the global level. Nonetheless, we need to be working to phase these out and push the market towards alternatives. In the interim, it should also be noted that, where power is generated by coal combustion, the provision of energy efficient lighting can result in significant reductions in the emissions of mercury through decreased power consumption, which may (even with mercury-contain- ing fluorescent lamps) result in a lower net mercury release or emission to the environment. The effects on the environment of mercury-containing products such as these lamps can also be minimized by the implementation of environmentally sound management of mercury-containing waste. Waste separation programmes and recycling activities are able to reduce the mercury made available to the environment from such products. – VCM using the mercury process is another where there is no commercially viable alternative at this point in time. The demand for polyvinyl chloride is very high in some countries, particularly where there are extensive building projects, and in some countries the viable sources of raw materials for VCM mean that mercury use is needed. Nonetheless, measures to minimize emissions and releases should be applied immedi- ately, as well as a plan for eventual phasing out as alternatives are found. It is my expectation that, over time, all of these uses will become increasingly limited, and eventually will cease.

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MERCURY – TIME TO ACT