Canada studies mercury, electronics recycling. (Municipal Recycling).

Although lacking the infrastructure to recycle computer monitors, mercury switches and fluorescent bulbs, Canada is starting to address the safe recycling of these materials.

In a session put together by the Canadian Association of Recycling Industries (CARI) at the Canadian Solid Waste & Recycling Expo, held in Toronto in late November, speakers addressed Canadian efforts to recycle these problem materials.

Electronics recycler Gordon Weis of EPR Services Inc., Toronto, says the top priority for Canadian federal and provincial legislators should be to implement "regulations to promote, not prevent, recycling."

Weis also pointed to the importance of developing end markets if a recycling infrastructure is to be established. "Mixed plastics are a bane to electronics recyclers," Weis noted as an example.

The Canadian electronics recycler has compiled information on U.S. efforts, and lauded Massachusetts for the way it prepared for its landfill ban on cathode ray tubes (CRTs). He says the state enforced the ban "only after establishing an infrastructure for recycling and after securing contracts with recyclers."

Monica Johnson of Toronto area company Fluorescent Lamp Recyclers says the firm has been using a process that recovers 98% of the materials produced after the fluorescent tubes are crushed. Recovered material includes aluminum, copper, glass and mercury, which is resold to lamps and light companies.

The company also charges 10 to 12 cents per foot to those bringing in the bulbs to cover its costs.

Leah Hagreen of the Toronto consulting firm Laurie & Love has helped put together a pilot program for auto dismantlers to pull mercury switches from cars before they are scrapped. As in Europe and the U.S., Canadian lawmakers are concerned about the dissipation of mercury at scrap yards and scrap-melting steel mills.