{"id":2429,"date":"2011-12-31T21:24:53","date_gmt":"2012-01-01T02:24:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/?p=2429"},"modified":"2012-01-01T22:47:48","modified_gmt":"2012-01-02T03:47:48","slug":"the-real-cost-of-recycling-mercury-is-high","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/?p=2429","title":{"rendered":"The Cost of Putting the Trouble Back in the Bottle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>BUSINESS WEEK, December 30, 2011<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/dreamstime_xs_22482986.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 20px 0px 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px\" title=\"dreamstime_xs_22482986\" border=\"0\" alt=\"dreamstime_xs_22482986\" align=\"left\" src=\"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/dreamstime_xs_22482986_thumb.jpg\" width=\"250\" height=\"221\" \/><\/a> The Maine Department of Environmental Protection is encouraging the Legislature to take a closer look at the cost of so-called take-back programs aimed at ensuring proper disposal of mercury-containing compact fluorescent lights, batteries and electronic waste.<\/p>\n<p>The DEP says it has cost more than $2.5 million over the last decade to remove about 400 pounds of mercury from the environment. That&#8217;s about $6,000 per pound.<\/p>\n<p>The agency says 112 pounds of mercury has been recovered in Maine from vehicle switches, 264 pounds from thermostats and 32 pounds from light bulbs over 10 years.<\/p>\n<p>The agency is now seeking public input to go along with the report to the Maine Legislature&#8217;s Joint Standing Committee on Environment and Natural Resources. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessweek.com\/ap\/financialnews\/D9RV1CSO0.htm\" target=\"_blank\">[Read original article]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This short article in Business Week highlights the difficulties we face in getting the toxic chemicals and materials we use out of our environment and highlights the importance of recycling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":""},"categories":[17,401],"tags":[1617,1614,1615,1616],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2429"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2429"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2433,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2429\/revisions\/2433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}