Protect Lake Michigan News

S.B. 1241 and H.B. 943 will protect children's health by eliminating Illinois's largest remaining categories of mercury-containing products

SPRINGFIELD, IL—The Illinois House of Representatives yesterday passed Senate Bill 1241, which prohibits the sale or installation of mercury-containing thermostats—and concludes a successful effort, led by State Senator Mattie Hunter (D-Chicago) and State Representative Karen May (D-Highland Park), to pass two bills eliminating the largest classes of mercury-containing products still legal for sale in Illinois.

“Senate Bill 1241 and House Bill 943 will combat the contamination and environmental hazards that stem from mercury’s unnecessary use in products,” Said Hunter, SB 1241’s chief sponsor. “This is another important step in strengthening Illinois’s laws regarding mercury, which causes significant health risks to a significant portion of our population.”

"These bills are about protecting children's health," said Representative Karen May (D-Highland Park), chair of the House Environmental Health Committee and chief sponsor of HB 943, which bans the sale mercury-containing measuring devices and passed the legislature on May 16. "If we don't curtail the major sources of mercury pollution, we are knowingly endangering the healthy development of Illinois children."

A potent neurotoxin particularly dangerous to developing children, mercury is widely used in thermostats and measuring devices such as medical thermometers, barometers and boodpressure cuffs. According to U.S. EPA, these products account for over a third of the mercury in products sold nationally.

"These bills are a huge victory for Illinois Children, but we also expect them to have a national impact,” said John Gaudette, lobbyist for the Illinois Environmental Council, which advocated for the bills. “As the nation’s fifth biggest consumer market, Illinois may serve as the tipping point beyond which manufacturers find it too expensive to continue making both mercury and non-mercury versions of their products. The more states that pass similar laws, the closer we are to having, in effect, a nation-wide ban.”

Thirty-five percent of America’s population already lives in one of a dozen states that already bans mercury-containing thermostats. Nine states currently prohibit mercury in measuring devices.

“Policy makers are realizing the senselessness of continuing to expose people to mercury’s health risks when safer alternatives are widely available,” said Max Muller, Environmental Advocate at Environment Illinois. “Moreover, they’re realizing the financial risk as well. Properly cleaning up a mercury spill can cost tens of thousands of dollars, and researchers estimate the health impacts of mercury poisoning cost our country billions of dollars per years.”

When disposed of, mercury-containing thermostats and measuring devices are often crushed or incinerated, causing mercury’s airborne release. A single gram of mercury is sufficient to contaminate a 20-acre lake, and the average thermostat contains three grams of mercury. Illinois EPA estimates less than 4% of thermostats are properly recycled in Illinois and thousands of pounds off mercury from these products are improperly disposed of each year.

When airborne mercury lands in waterways, bacteria convert it to methylmercury, a potent toxin that can permanently damage the human heart, brain, and immune system. When a pregnant mother eats contaminated fish, methylmercury crosses the placenta and can cause irreparable damage to the developing fetus's central nervous system, resulting in developmental delays, motor, memory, and attention problems, and decreased IQ. Nationally, U.S. EPA researchers estimate that up to one in six potential mothers—including over 100,000 women in Illinois—has high enough blood-mercury levels to put a fetus at risk.

Mercury-free thermostats and measuring devices with equal or better performance are available at comparable cost. Honeywell, the nation’s leading thermostat manufacturer, has already eliminated mercury from its product line. Leading hospitals like Johns Hopkins and the Mayo Clinic have phased-out mercury in medical measuring devices. In Illinois, Omron, a leading medical device vendor based in Bannockburn, has eliminated mercury in its products, and Consorta, a bulk purchaser based in Schaumburg, has eliminated mercury-containing devices from its purchasing contracts.

Illinois has made great strides in recent years in eliminating preventable sources of mercury pollution by passing bills to prohibit mercury in personal fever thermometers (2003), most switches and relays (2004), children's vaccines (2005), and automobiles switches (2006). Most significantly, in December 2006, Illinois became the largest coal-burning state to require power plants to eliminate up to 90 percent of their atmospheric mercury pollution.

"This bill further established Illinois's leadership on mercury reduction," said Gaudette, "In the last five years, we've gone from the bottom 5 to the top 5 among states in protecting citizens from toxic mercury.