Australia bans mercury and mercury-containing products

On  7 March 2022, Australia notified the changes to its laws regarding Mercury, in a bid to comply with the Minamata Convention obligations. Due to the amendment, Australia now prohibits the import and export of elemental mercury, also known as metallic mercury. The new rule to prohibit products that contain mercury became effective on March 7, 2022.  The prohibited products are: 

• Batteries, except for button zinc silver oxide batteries with a mercury content <2% and button zinc air batteries with a mercury content <2%
• Switches and relays, except very high accuracy capacitance and loss measurement bridges and high frequency radio frequency switches and relays in monitoring and control instruments with a maximum mercury content of 20mg per bridge, switch or relay
• Compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) for general lighting purposes that are ≤30 watts with a mercury content exceeding 5mg per lamp burner
• Linear fluorescent lamps (LFLs) for general lighting purposes:
  1. Triband phosphor <60 watts with a mercury content exceeding 5mg per lamp
  2. Halophosphate phosphor ≤40 watts with a mercury content exceeding 10mg per lamp
• High pressure mercury vapour lamps (HPMV) for general lighting purposes
• Mercury in cold cathode fluorescent lamps and external electrode fluorescent lamps (CCFL and EEFL) for electronic displays:
  1. Short length (≤500mm) with mercury content exceeding 3.5mg per lamp
  2. Medium length (>500mm and ≤1500mm) with mercury content exceeding 5mg per lamp
  3. Long length (>1500mm) with mercury content exceeding 13mg per lamp
• Cosmetics (with mercury content above 1ppm), including skin lightening soaps and creams, and not including eye area cosmetics where mercury is used as a preservative and no effective and safe substitute preservatives are available
• Pesticides, biocides and topical antiseptics
• The following non-electronic measuring devices except non-electronic measuring devices installed in large-scale equipment or those used for high precision measurement, where no suitable mercury-free alternative is available:
  1. Barometers
  2. Hygrometers
  3. Manometers
  4. Thermometers
  5. Sphygmomanometers