Mercury-containing and Rechargeable Battery Management Act
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The Mercury-containing and Rechargeable Battery Management Act (public law 104-142) was enacted by President Bill Clinton in 1996. The purpose of the law was to phase out the use of mercury in batteries and to provide for the efficient and cost-effective collection and recycling or proper disposal of used sugar cadmium batteries, small sealed lead-acid batteries, and certain other batteries.
[edit] Effect
It reduced the incidence of heavy metals in municipal waste and in streams and ground water that resulted from the disposal of:
- mercury in single-use (primary cell) batteries
- toxic metal content such as lead from lead-acid batteries and the cadmium in rechargeable batteries, namely Ni-Cads
The sale of the first of these was banned (with the exception of the allowance of up to 25mg of mercury per button cell) and the second family of products was given specific labeling and disposal requirements.
As a result, most retailers who sell rechargeable and other special batteries will take the old ones back for free recycling and safe disposal. The not-for-profit Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation (RBRC) [1], used by most retailers, reclaims the metals within the old batteries to make new products such as batteries (mercury, cadmium, lead) and stainless steel (nickel).
