[Judy Pino] 
Hello, and welcome to Green 
Scene, EPA's series of 
environmental podcasts that 
you can take with you. 
I'm Judy Pino with the 
Office of Multimedia. 
Are you driving a car made in
the year 2002 or earlier?
If so, you should know that 
the small light switches 
that come on whenever you open 
the glove compartment, hood or 
trunk could be detrimental 
to the environment.
And here to tell us why is 
Rick Otis, the Deputy 
Associate Administrator for 
EPA's Office of Policy, 
Economics and Innovation.
Thanks, Rick, for 
visiting us again.
[Rick Otis] 
Glad to be back.
[Judy Pino] 
What is the problem 
with these switches? 
[Rick Otis] 
Well, the principal problem is 
that they contain mercury. 
For certain cars made in 
the United States up until 
around 2002, they had little 
light switches that were in 
the hood and in the 
trunk of your car. 
When you opened up the hood, 
the light would come on. 
And this is an
example of one.
In order to make it work, 
there was a little tiny 
mercury switch inside.
They're not very big; they're 
about a half-inch in size. 
They're about
that big.
And they don't look like 
a whole lot, but there's
about a pencil-head worth 
of mercury in this thing.
But when you add them all up 
for all the scrap cars that 
are scrapped in the United 
States in a given year 
that had these switches, 
that's a lot of mercury. 
And that mercury would go into 
the scrap steel made from 
the old car, and that mercury
would then -- scrap steel 
would go into a steel mill, 
and it might go up the stack.
And that mercury emissions in 
the air was our real concern.
How to remove that mercury 
from the air? 
[Judy Pino] 
So that's what 
we don't want.
So a lot of people might be 
saying, "Well, if I own 
a car that's from 2002 or 
before, and I have this 
thing in my car, 
is it safe?" 
[Rick Otis] 
Perfectly safe to leave 
it exactly where it is.
There's no harm having 
the switch there.
The real issue is when your 
car is recycled and that 
scrap steel goes into a steel 
mill and that mercury is then 
emitted into the air, 
and that's the problem. 
So your car is fine 
the way it is.
[Judy Pino] 
So each year the steel industry 
recycles more than 14 million 
tons of steel from old vehicles, 
and that's equivalent to 
13.5 million 
new autos.
How is EPA taking action so 
that recycling, which, 
as we all know, saves energy 
and natural resources, 
doesn't create a 
hazard instead? 
[Rick Otis] 
Well, we tried to figure out 
what the best mechanism was to 
remove that mercury from the air 
emissions of those steel mills.
And we created, along with state 
partners and environmental 
groups, the auto industry, 
the steel industry, 
the scrap steel folks, 
the people who dismantle cars,
in August of 2006, we signed an 
agreement to create a national 
program to remove the mercury 
switches at the very beginning 
of that recycling process.
And it was a year's worth 
of negotiations, 
sometimes a little contentious. 
When you sit people down at 
a table and get them to try 
to agree to do something, 
sometimes it gets a little 
heated, but ultimately we ended 
up with an agreement to run 
a national program that would 
remove these switches. 
We're aiming for about 80 
to 90 percent recovery. 
That means about four million 
switches a year have to be 
removed from cars as 
they're dismantled, 
and we're succeeding
so far.  
[Judy Pino] 
That's very ambitious.
Why did EPA establish 
a voluntary program 
rather than requiring 
the switch removal?
[Rick Otis] 
Well, there's a couple of 
reasons, and anyone who's
heard me talk about this program 
knows I can go on for hours and 
hours about why that's the case, 
but I'll be brief here.
The principal reason is that we 
weren't sure that even if we did 
regulate, and we were in 
the process, and we just 
issued what are called 
Area Sources Rules for 
Electric Arc Furnaces,
steel mills and foundries,
to reduce certain 
air emissions.
We weren't sure that when we 
wrote those rules that they 
would also succeed at being 
able to pull the mercury 
from the air emissions.  
And it would take us several 
years to write those rules. 
This national voluntary program, 
we could get done faster, 
which means we removed 
more mercury sooner. 
We got a better environmental 
outcome, and better for 
public health.
We've removed enough switches 
that, I think, that indicated 
that doing it sooner was 
a good thing to do. 
And so, I think the regulatory 
requirement, an important part 
of the program, wasn't the only 
thing that you needed to do 
and may even not have been 
successful if we had tried.
[Judy Pino] 
Now you launched it in August of 
2006, and the program has made 
significant strides.
And you're getting ready to 
announce a new milestone.
[Rick Otis] 
Yes, we launched it in August of 
2006, and the end of February of 
this year, we are going to reach 
one million switches removed, 
which is about one ton of 
mercury that did not get 
emitted into 
the air.
In the latter part of the month 
of February, the administrator 
of the U.S. Environmental 
Protection Agency, 
Steve Johnson, along with our 
partners from environmental 
groups, from the auto industry, 
the steel industry, the scrap 
recyclers, and everyone else 
I mentioned before, 
will be there to pull that one 
millionth switch out of a car.
And it's also an indication 
of how much more work we 
have to do.   
We really have to get that up 
to, not one million in a year, 
but four million 
in a year.
So the challenge for EPA 
and our partners is to 
ramp the program up.   
In the first year, 
we got programs 
operating in all 
50 states. 
Now we have to get 
them to work. 
[Judy Pino] 
Now, some people may want to be 
proactive, and they may want to 
remove the switch themselves. 
And you say no, 
not recommended.
[Rick Otis] 
My recommendation is that you 
leave it in the car and you 
don't worry 
about it.
And when you take this 
car in to trade it in, 
the auto dealer will worry about 
where that scrap car goes, 
or if you want to, you can -- 
when you trade your car in, 
or if you take your car in, 
you can get rid of it if 
you'd like to to someone who's 
on a Web site that's 
run by a company called ELVS, 
End of Life Vehicle Solutions.   
And you can find out if there 
is a scrap dealer in your 
area where you can take it and 
they'll properly dispose of it. 
While you still own the car, 
if you really do want to 
remove it, there are some 
places in the country -- 
AAA, I know, runs a program 
where you can bring your car 
in and you can have the mercury 
switch removed and have it 
replaced with a switch that 
doesn't have mercury.
But you don't really 
need to do that. 
[Judy Pino] 
Okay, well, good. 
Lots of good advice. 
Thank you, Rick,
once again.
Six thousand two hundred 
participants, one million 
switches recovered, 
and counting.
[Rick Otis] 
Thank you.
[Judy Pino] 
And if you wish to find out more 
on the Mercury Switch Recovery 
Program, please visit 
www.elvsolutions.org, ELVS.
There you can find a list 
of participating service 
providers who will recycle 
your car and properly remove 
the mercury switch 
from your vehicle.
And, of course, you can always 
visit epa.gov/mercury.
See you next time 
on Green Scene.