A federal appeals court upheld a Vermont law last week requiring manufacturers to label items that contain mercury. The 1998 law, the first of its kind in the United States, was challenged by the National Electrical Manufacturers Association on behalf of companies that produce fluorescent light bulbs containing mercury. NEMA argued that labeling the products would be too expensive and that Vermont’s share of the market was too small to merit special labeling practices. Happily, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York disagreed. Mercury is banned from state landfills and must be recycled, but many consumers are unaware that they are buying products containing the toxic metal.
