WASHINGTON: The Environmental Protection Agency is banning exports of five mercury compounds effective Jan. 1, 2020. The five compounds, listed in an EPA notice to be published in the Aug. 26 Federal Register, are mercury (I) chloride, also known as calomel; mercury (II) oxide; mercury (II) sulfate; mercury (II) nitrate; and cinnabar, also known as mercury sulphide. Mercury (I) chloride, produced in volumes of about 25 metric tons annually, was the highest volume mercury compound generated in the U.S., the EPA told Congress in a 2009 report.
This particular mercury compound is a common product in wastes generated from air pollution controls, refining needed to extract zinc, gold and copper mining industries and the production of chlorine gas from brine by the chlor-alkali industry, the EPA said. Mercury (I) chloride is exported for several reasons, including it can easily be converted to elemental mercury, EPA said in “Potential Export of Mercury Compounds From the United States for Conversion to Elemental Mercury,”
The agency banned the five mercury compounds to comply with changes Congress made to the Toxic Substances Control Act through the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (Pub. L. No. 114-182). The amendments, which became law June 22, expanded a 2013 ban on the export of elemental mercury that Congress imposed through the Mercury Export Ban Act of 2008 (Pub. L. No. 110-414). All five mercury compounds banned by the Lautenberg Act were discussed in the 2009 report the EPA provided to Congress.
