ENVIRONMENTAL LAW: MERCURY MANAGEMENT REGULATIONS GAZETTED

ENVIRONMENTAL LAW: MERCURY MANAGEMENT REGULATIONS GAZETTED

• 06 February 2025
• Environmental Law
• SA Legal Academy

Please note: On 24 February 2025, the department gazetted a notice withdrawing the regulations ‘until they have been tabled in Parliament’. This is noting that sub-section 47(2) of the 1998 National Environmental Management Act allows the Minister 30 days from the promulgation and publication of regulations under the Act to table them in each House and/or the provincial legislature concerned. Should Parliament and/or the relevant provincial legislature not be in session, more time is allowed. There appears to be no deadline by which these institutions are required to consider and report on the regulations. Neither is it clear why the mercury management regulations were not temporarily suspended pending the completion of this process.

The Department of Forestry, Fisheries & the Environment has gazetted regulations on the management and phasing out of mercury. Immediately effective, the new regulations mark the culmination of a public consultation process begun in 2022. They:

• apply to:
  • the sellers, distributors, importers and exporters of mercury
  • the manufacturers and users of mercury-added products, and
  • manufacturing processes in which mercury is used
• do not apply to mercury emissions and waste
• provide for a ‘phasing down’ of dental amalgam, and
• prescribe:
  • registration and reporting procedures, as well as
  • interim storage requirements.

Please click the link below for more information:

• regulations

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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