California & Pennsylvania Pass Thermostat Recycling Laws
California and Pennsylvania recently joined Maine, Iowa, New Hampshire and Vermont in passing laws enforcing the proper collection and recycling of thermostats containing mercury, according to Environmental Protection.
The new laws are based on a model developed by the Product Stewardship Institute (PSI), which shares the responsibility for the collection and proper recycling of mercury thermostats with:
- Thermostat manufacturers
- Heating and cooling contractors
- Wholesalers
- Retailers
- Environmental groups
- Government officials
“While thermostat manufacturers have the most responsibility to reduce the toxicity of their products and remove them from the waste stream, other stakeholders, including consumers, have key roles in thermostat collection and recycling,” said Scott Cassel, PSI’s executive director. “Mercury is one of the biggest health hazards found in everyday household products, and the proper recycling of these products is essential to protecting the environment.”
Many older thermostats currently in use contain mercury, a harmful environmental toxin which bioaccumulates in the environment and affects the brain, spinal cord, kidneys and liver. Mercury is so persistent in the environment that the amount contained in one home thermometer has the capacity to contaminate a 20-acre lake with enough mercury to result in a fish consumption warning.
Maine was the first state to enact a comprehensive thermostat recycling law in 2006.
As of June 17th 2011 we have upgraded our comment system to use Facebook comments. The below comments are closed and are listed for historical purposes.
Sandra
posted on October 31st, 2008 at 8:08 pm
I am a Pennsylvania resident and frankly I not sure if this will be put into efffect in PA. As of now in Philadelphia, recycling is mandatory, but not much is being done to implement it. Residents are frustrated with the way their recycling bins disappear and there are no incentives to get more people involved. Where is this “recycling of thermostats” going to even start in this state when a regular recycling program itself is it abysmal shape!
marianne
posted on November 4th, 2008 at 10:04 am
where can we dispose of florescent light bulbs? I cannot find anything within 100 miles of where I live! (Western Pa) If anyone knows please tell me. And since i see them in use everywhere, are they just being tossed in the trash?
Todd
posted on November 19th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Retailers who sell compact fluorescent bulbs are beginning to also take them back for recycling. Earlier this year, Home Depot announced a national program so that you can bring them to any store.
Good luck!
Donna L Coffee
posted on November 19th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
My small fluorescent light bulbs come with this website on the package:
http://www.lamprecycle.org or this phone # to call: 1-866-666-6850.
When any of my bulbs burn out, which hasn’t happened yet, I fully expect to have to box them and ship them to one of the many addresses listed at the above site, unless I find out that some local store, such as Home Depot, will accept the bulbs and get them to a responsible recycler. For example, I have read that Home Depot accepts spent household batteries for recycling, and I have a large bin, collected at my school, ready to go! I’ll let you know how it goes. (Until I found that out, I was prepared to ship the several pounds of batteries to an address I found on-line, AND PAY THEM TO TAKE THE BATTERIES- $0.89 per pound.)
So the website above has a long list of places in many different states and Canada, claiming to properly recycle the bulbs. At the top of the list is an address in Allentown, PA. I think it’s worth checking out whatever addresses look like good possibilities to you, give them a call, or visit their websites, if any are listed. It’s just a shame we have to go through all this to recycle items that can’t be collected curbside, but which items are being recommended to us and sold extensively. I personally believe that any store or catalog (or website) which sells these kinds of items should be responsible to accept them back when they are “spent”, and ship them on to a recycler.
Linda
posted on November 20th, 2008 at 5:47 am
I’ve had a theory that, if people were given monetary incentive(s) to recycle (which is perhaps the main reason why people are so willing to recycle bottles and cans), and recycling were made to be less of a hassle, (Right now, there’s too much work involved. All that sorting, you know), people would do more of it. Well, I saw a story on ABC’s “World News Tonight” the other night that proved my theory to be correct. The citizens of Everett, MA weren’t all that eager to recycle because it was too much of a hassle. However, when Everett started offering financial incentive to recycle and made the recycling process less of a chore, (No more sorting. All recyclables, regardless of what they are, just get thrown together and the sorting gets done at the recycling center), the percentage of Everett residents recycling went way up. If more municipalities would follow Everett’s lead, just imagine how much more recycling Americans would do!
Scott
posted on January 19th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
To Sandra, this program will not rely much on state and local agencies, although they too have a shared responsibility role. Thermostats will be recycled by the thermostat manufacturers. They provide the bins and pay to recycle them. These producer responsibility programs are much different than relying on government, which has way too little funding, to pay for and manage the program. If strong performance goals are put in place, which unfortunately is not the case in PA at this time, it will require the manufacturers to do more to take out these mercury-containing products.