I was looking on Iwasaki’s Japanese website when I noticed that all of their mercury lamp products will be discontinued in 2021 due to regulations in the Minamata Convention.  This is kind of upsetting, considering they made several unique lamps for the Japanese market, which will become impossible to obtain. This shouldn’t effect production for the US market though, which I’m glad about.

I was looking on Iwasaki’s Japanese website when I noticed that all of their mercury lamp products will be discontinued in 2021 due to regulations in the Minamata Convention.  This is kind of upsetting, considering they made several unique lamps for the Japanese market, which will become impossible to obtain. This shouldn’t effect production for the US market though, which I’m glad about.

That's terrible. Hopefully they're still produced for the US. I don't have any experience with Iwasaki lamps but it would be nice to keep them as an option for future lamp needs.

Wait what!? I thought mercury vapor was still used on a large scale in Japan. Does this mean they are going to stop using it completely? From what I know the reason for the discontinuation is because of the mercury content.

When I visited Japan in 2017 there were still a fair bit of places with mercury vapour and fluorescent but even then LED was beginning to make inroads in Japan. It seems like these regulations will mean that most conventional discharge lighting sources (CFL, HID, and fluorescent) will get phased out by the mid 2020s due to the mercury content and most people will be using LED. Unless some other lighting technology get commercialized before then I guess.

I'm honestly surprised japan is behind when it comes to lighting. Usually they are quite up there with technology

They have their priorities. Lighting isn't one of them. 

They have their priorities. Lighting isn't one of them. 

If it works don't fix it I assume?

Well.. the Japanese are well known for awesome engineering, at least a some of them, take Crapota/Toyota and Honda for example.  In the late 80s they worked hard to engineer their vehicles for 300,000 miles without major (engine block) failure.  And for Honda and Toyota, they were successful for the most part.  (And some of the other manufacturers) I have a lot of respect for them.  But man oh man it's a tough life over there. 

I've heard that the Japanese preferred the mercury lit street aesthetic and were more willing to continue using MV over the usual HPS for streetlighting.

Also interestingly Japan in 2017 still had a lot of places with incandescent traffic signals even in the bigger cities.

The Japanese are SMART.

They probably resisted the conversion for many good reasons:

-The MV stuff was super reliable
-"if it ain't broke......"
-They have more important things to do with their resources
-they may not have a domestic LED lighting supplier that can provide a typical Japanese-level quality LED lights sources

In the West, and many other places, we have such strong tendencies to "spend money to save money"
Every year, I get at least 2 different companies approach me about the windows on my home. They want me to pay over $50-80K to replace the windows on my home. There's nothing wrong with my windows, they are already dual pane. But they tell me I will save money. How the heck am I going to save enough money to break even at $50K? And why would I want to replace my perfectly good windows with a product that may not work as well??
I see my neighbors getting their windows replaced all the time. I think the government subsidizes some of it, which makes me even madder because my tax money goes to those subsidies! Way more money is spent then saved.

That's terrible. Hopefully they're still produced for the US. I don't have any experience with Iwasaki lamps but it would be nice to keep them as an option for future lamp needs.

The build quality of the ones I have are second to none. Get them while you can 

Remember that it’s only an issue if you want to buy a lamp made only for the Japanese market. As long as the lamp is sold somewhere else, you should still be able to get it. It shouldn’t effect the lamps that are sold in the US or in Australia. It is only going to affect the lamps made for Japan only, like their 700 watt clear lamp, or the mercury lamps with two arc tubes to double lamp life, or the lamps with both a mercury and a high pressure sodium arc tube. If you wanted any of those, you would have to buy them from Japan while you can.

On an unrelated note, Iwasaki sells low pressure sodium lamps for the Japanese market, but they are ridiculously expensive.