Steel mills that recycle scrap metal face a similar incidental emissions problem. North American automobile manufacturers have used hundreds of thousands of kilograms of mercury in vehicle switches and other applications, such as headlights. Much of this mercury enters the atmosphere when the scrapped cars are melted down to make new steel, while some of it contaminates the ground in the yards where the cars are crushed or shredded. Nearly all of the mercury found in cars enters the environment. European and Japanese car companies stopped using mercury switches in the early to mid-1990s, and North American car companies are expected to stop most uses of mercury by 2003. The problem of disposing of.
