| Oregon county to
launch collection program for mercury thermostats June 19 -- Marion County, Ore., is beginning a mercury thermostat collection program this fall The $25,000 pilot project is being funded by a $10,000 grant from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, $10,000 in matching funds from the county and $5,000 in matching money from Portland General Electric. The Oregon Environmental Council will encourage homeowners to replace the mercury-containing thermostats with digital models and return their old units to Lowe´s home improvement stores in the county. The program expects to recover at least 250 thermostats, which contain about 4 grams of mercury each. The used thermostats will be sent to the Thermostat Recycling Corp., a nonprofit company created by thermostat makers.
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