Risk management strategy for products containing mercury: chapter 7


Risk Management Tools / Instruments to be Developed

Following the development of technical background and socioeconomic studies on mercury-containing products and alternatives in Canada, the most appropriate management tools for achieving the risk management objective were selected by qualitatively evaluating a range of management tools against a set of criteria. Evaluation criteria included environmental effectiveness, economic efficiency, distributional impact, political and public acceptability, jurisdictional compatibility and international obligations.

The full suite of risk management tools was evaluated including CEPA 1999 regulatory instruments, market based tools (economic instruments), suasive/voluntary tools and information provision tools.

According to analyses at this time, the tool deemed most appropriate for managing mercury releases from mercury-containing products, to a level consistent with the risk management objective, is a regulation under section 93 of CEPA 1999 with the following potential components:

To address areas where the proposed regulation may not be sufficient to meet the risk management objectives, several complementary tools were also identified. Complementary tools and potential areas of application are as follows:

In addition to these complementary tools, potential avenues for managing the ultimate fate of mercury from end-of-life products, including the development of long-term storage considerations, will be explored to help ensure recovered mercury is not released to the environment through other sources.

Specific applications and design of complementary tools will be determined during the completion of a quantitative analysis (cost-benefit) of the proposed regulation. A communication plan will be prepared in conjunction with the implementation of the RMS that will outline activities to be undertaken to help Canadians better understand and deal with the risks associated with mercury-containing products.

Page details

Date modified: