Under a 2005 grant from the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, UMass Amherst performed a mercury reduction program. The Mercury Reduction Project had two major accomplishments: (1) it provided education to the campus community regarding mercury and mercury alternatives, and (2) it greatly reduced the presence of mercury in many of our more vulnerable locations such as teaching laboratories. As a result of this project, the campus disposed of approximately 1,480 thermometers. Ranging in size, it is estimated that UMA removed approximately 12 pounds of mercury as a result of this project. Approximately 750 thermometers were removed from one large organic chemistry teaching lab alone.

Working with Fisher Scientific and Ertco, the manufacturer of non-mercury thermometers, UMA developed a specialized non-mercury replacement thermometer used in our organic chemistry teaching lab for micro-scale experiments. The thermometer application required a specific temperature range and incremental scale, as well as identical length and circumference to the mercury original. Developed specifically for this project, this new thermometer should be usable in Chemistry teaching labs throughout the country. The availability of a suitable non-mercury alternative should help to drastically reduce the number of mercury thermometers necessary in these types of teaching labs.

The campus is currently undertaking a second mercury reduction initiative through state funding.