Interstate Mercury Education and Reduction Clearinghouse (IMERC)

Starting in 1999 the states in the Northeast and other parts of the country actively began to pursue enactment of legislation focused on reducing mercury in products and waste. In the Northeast, these efforts focused on enactment of provisions of the Mercury Education and Reduction Model Legislation. In 2001 NEWMOA launched the Interstate Mercury Education and Reduction Clearinghouse (IMERC) to provide ongoing technical and programmatic assistance to states that have enacted mercury education and reduction legislation and a single point of contact for industry and the public for information on mercury-added products and member states' mercury education and reduction programs. The IMERC state members include Connecticut, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.Ope

Reducing Exposures to Mercury

Mercury is an environmental contaminant affecting neurological development, the immune system and cardiac health. Air emissions become environmental pollutants impacting air, water and land. Consumption of mercury-contaminated fish can create public health concerns, primarily to pregnant women and their fetuses. New York State\u27s public policy response addresses incidental exposures with annual fish advisories and restrictions on mercury emissions and products sold or used. Additional public policy responses to the mercury problem can include: direct notification of advisories to fish consumers, enhanced public health notification of benefits and risks of consuming fish, labeling requirements on mercury-containing products, and expanded scientific data collection to track mercury interactions in the atmosphere to determine confounding factors contributing to mercury exposures

A Review of Events That Expose Children to Elemental Mercury in the United States

Concern for children exposed to elemental mercury prompted the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to review the sources of elemental mercury exposures in children, describe the location and proportion of children affected, and make recommendations on how to prevent these exposures. In this review, we excluded mercury exposures from coal-burning facilities, dental amalgams, fish consumption, medical waste incinerators, or thimerosal-containing vaccines. We reviewed federal, state, and regional programs with data on mercury releases along with published reports of children exposed to elemental mercury in the United States. We selected all mercury-related events that were documented to expose (or potentially expose) children. Primary exposure locations were at home, at school, and at others such as industrial property not adequately remediated or medical facilities. Exposure to small spills from broken thermometers was the most common scenario; however, reports of such exposures are declining. The information reviewed suggests that most releases do not lead to demonstrable harm if the exposure period is short and the mercury is properly cleaned up. Primary prevention should include health education and policy initiatives

Children's exposure to elemental mercury : a national review of exposure events

Congress wanted to know more about events related to elemental mercury exposures. They asked the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) to review the ways children are exposed. ATSDR worked with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to prepare a report about their findings. For children, most elemental mercury exposures happen at home or at school.Richard E. Besser, reported by: the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Mercury Workgroup

Mercury in Products Phase-Down Strategy

This Phase-Down Strategy is a project of the GLRC and seeks to complement and enhance the recommendations in the Quicksilver Caucus’s Action Plan and Implementation Strategy for reducing mercury in the environment. The goal of the strategy is to reduce the use of mercury-containing products and to minimize mercury releases caused by remaining uses of mercury-containing products in the Great Lakes region by 2015. States are encouraged to take the recommended actions as early as is practical, with implementation of mercury bans no later than 2015.Ope

Environ Health Perspect

ObjectiveConcern for children exposed to elemental mercury prompted the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to review the sources of elemental mercury exposures in children, describe the location and proportion of children affected, and make recommendations on how to prevent these exposures. In this review, we excluded mercury exposures from coal-burning facilities, dental amalgams, fish consumption, medical waste incinerators, or thimerosal-containing vaccines.Data sourcesWe reviewed federal, state, and regional programs with information on mercury releases along with published reports of children exposed to elemental mercury in the United States. We selected all mercury-related events that were documented to expose (or potentially expose) children. We then explored event characteristics (i.e., the exposure source, location).Data synthesisPrimary exposure locations were at home, at school, and at other locations such as industrial property not adequately remediated or medical facilities. Exposure to small spills from broken thermometers was the most common scenario; however, reports of such exposures are declining.Discussion and conclusionsChildhood exposures to elemental mercury often result from inappropriate handling or cleanup of spilled mercury. The information reviewed suggests that most releases do not lead to demonstrable harm if the exposure period is short and the mercury is properly cleaned up.RecommendationsPrimary prevention should include health education and policy initiatives. For larger spills, better coordination among existing surveillance systems would assist in understanding the risk factors and in developing effective prevention efforts.19590676PMC2702399795

Sustainable Housing Design: System Control Strategy

Current housing design faces various environmental, social, and economic issues, such as climate change, aging population, and workplace needs. Dealing with such issues and pursuing sustainability is a target-oriented challenge. The science of system control can be utilized for all target-oriented tasks. Therefore, applying system control, we have been developing methods for sustainable design. Based on our finished research and practice results, this chapter shows how to design sustainable homes. Section 2 briefly illustrates the methods with two figures: (1) the control system for promoting sustainable housing design, (2) the process of producing and revising sustainable housing design guidelines. Section 3 demonstrates a concrete process of creating sustainable design guidelines. First, it identifies global and general problems related to current homes and specifies requirements for sustainable housing design. Next, it converts these requirements into a tabular form of “housing elements, variables, and their desired values.” The completed table has turned out compact “sustainable housing design guidelines” for general use. The methods have four significant features: (1) total visualization for promoting sustainable design, (2) user-friendliness, (3) comprehensiveness, (4) flexibility toward optimization