Campaigns

Cleaning Up the Nation's Biggest Mercury Polluters

Sign our petition to the EPA and tell them to clean up cement kilns immediately!

Support our legal efforts to ensure the EPA acts promptly to reduce the dangerous impacts of mercury emissions.

Mercury pollution in the United States is rampant. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that 1 in 12 women of childbearing age have too much mercury in their blood. This toxic pollutant, emitted from the smokestacks of cement kilns, power plants, and large waste incinerators is polluting our lakes, rivers, streams and oceans. It stays in the environment long after it is emitted, "bioaccumulates" in fish and other wildlife, and ultimately, makes its way into our bodies.

Nursing women are often warned to avoid eating certain types of fish due to the toxic effects of mercury contamination. Even low exposures to fetuses and young children can impair their ability to walk, talk, learn, read, and write. Mercury polluters can and should clean up their act, and Earthjustice is working to ensure they do.

Cement Kilns: Mercury Making Machines

The EPA has refused to set standards to control mercury emissions from cement kilns. That's a serious problem, particularly given that cement kilns are among the nation's biggest emitters of the toxic metal.

And the amount of mercury pollution is even worse than we thought, with just over 150 kilns pumping about 23,000 pounds of mercury each year! That amount is almost twice as high as EPA acknowledged in 2006. It only takes 1/70th of a teaspoon of mercury to pollute a 20-acre lake to the point where fish are inedible. Check out the features below to learn more about the toxic cement kiln industry and how Earthjustice is working to clean it up.

With over 150 cement kilns across the country, one is closer than you might think. Check our interactive Google map to find out if there's one in your town.

Where does the mercury emitted from cement kilns come from? Our interactive graphic breaks it down.

Cement kilns are even bigger emitters than we thought. Earthjustice's comprehensive report on mercury emissions from cement kilns lays out just how egregious the underestimates have been.

Power Plants: Still Mercury Polluters

Power plants remain our nation's biggest mercury polluters overall. It's no surprise: many of them burn millions of tons of coal each year, and the government has done little to stop them. But the technology exists to clean these plants up significantly. Doing so would have a big impact right away and wouldn't only make fish caught in local lakes, streams, and rivers safer to eat: we'd all be safer, too.

We went to court and defeated a plan that would have allowed even more mercury from power plants. Because of our victory, much stronger limits on mercury emissions from power plants are scheduled to come out in 2009. We'll keep you up-to-date on the progress and what you can do to help.

Incinerators: Burning Waste Means More Pollution

Incinerators -- where everything from industrial waste, old tires, medical waste, and household garbage is burned -- continue to pump large amounts of mercury pollution into our communities. With thousands of incinerators located all over the country, it's possible that these facilities could be your neighborhood mercury polluter. Earthjustice has fought to overturn weak protections and force EPA to follow the law and meet deadlines to limit mercury and other toxic air pollutants from all types of incinerators.