Mercury switch
A small mercury-filled switch used in older vehicles' hood and trunk lights that must be removed before scrapping.
A mercury switch is a small tilt switch containing liquid mercury, used mainly to turn on hood and trunk lights, and in some anti-lock brake systems, in older vehicles. If a car is shredded with the switch inside, the mercury can be released when the steel is melted.
Recyclers remove these switches during depollution. It’s one reason a properly run yard spends time on a car before it goes to the crusher.
According to the EPA, the switches were used in many vehicles made before 2003.1 When EPA renewed its agreement with the national recovery program in 2018, EPA said more than 10,000 recyclers had removed and recycled more than 6.8 million mercury switches, preventing the release of more than 7.6 tons of mercury.2
References
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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “August 2006 Fact Sheet on National Vehicle Mercury Switch Recovery Program”, https://archive.epa.gov/mercury/archive/web/html/switchfs.html ↩
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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “EPA Joins Renewal of Mercury Switch Recovery Program Through Smart Sectors” (November 15, 2018), https://www.epa.gov/archive/epa/newsreleases/what-they-are-saying-epa-joins-renewal-mercury-switch-recovery-program-through-smart.html ↩