In actuality, the groups say they want the mercury removed from the waste and retired so that it does not return to the world market.

"It will be a travesty of environmental justice if the same toxic mercury waste that damaged the people and the environment in India merely gets recycled and then sold, where it will continue its cycle of poisoning developing countries again," said Ameer Shahul of Greenpeace India.

The material is a mixture of waste glass contaminated with mercury, effluent sludge, broken thermometers, and metallic mercury. A thermometer factory owned by Hindustan Lever, Ltd. in India generated the waste. It is a subsidiary of Unilever N.V., a Rotterdam, Netherlands, producer of food, detergent, home and personal products.

"There's an ongoing controversy in the idea of mercury retirement," said Bruce Lawrence, president of Bethlehem Appartus, Co.

Recycling mercury discourages mining for the material, Lawrence said. Each year, about 1 ton of mercury is mined worldwide., he said.

"For every ton of mercury that is recycled, there's one less ton of mercury pulled out of the ground," he said. "If they dig it out of the ground, there is another ton that we have to figure out what to do with later on."

Environmental groups wrongly believe retiring mercury will force product makers to use something else to make their goods, Lawrence said.

"Trying to completely control the supply and demand of a commodity has never been done," he said. "And that's what they are trying to accomplish."

But environmentalists want the recovered mercury perpetually stored so will not again end up in developing countries.

"The toxic buck must stop here," said Michael Bender, director of the Mercury Policy Project in Montpelier, Vt.

The United States and Europe are phasing out mercury use due to its toxicity, so excess mercury often is sent to developing countries, Bender said.