Mercury Recycling Director Says GM To Stop Participating ANN ARBOR, MI (Michigan Radio) - The head of a mercury switch recycling program says General Motors and its liquidation company have stopped participating.

The program keeps mercury out of the environment by removing and recycling mercury switches before old cars are crushed at the scrap yard.

The program has recycled about two million mercury switches from old cars so far, with about 36 million more to go.

More than half the switches are in GM vehicles.

But those vehicles were made by the old GM.

New GM left many old commitments behind in bankruptcy court, including mercury switch recycling.

Mary Bills is in charge of the switch recycling program.

She says an official of Motors Liquidation, the company GM left behind in bankruptcy, told her the bankruptcy judge would never approve the million dollar payment that GM used to give to the program every year.

But she says General Motors could decide to pick up the payment, just as Chrysler did.

"Chrysler also went through bankruptcy," she points out, "Yet they remain a fully participating partner in the program. They didn't walk away from their environmental liabilities."

Bills hopes GM will have a change of heart, or if not, that the Obama administration will put pressure on GM to reverse the decision.

Motors Liquidation Company, or the old GM, says its "policy is to review each contract and agreement carefully, including this one, but not to comment on the status on any individual one prematurely." © Copyright 2010, Michigan Radio