I broke a small tube with mercury in it and caused a nice scatter around a basement room floor. I've scooped most of it up, though I know there are small hard to see pin-head sized pieces left lingering. How dangerous is this really? And what is the best way to get them up; cotton balls, etc..?

I have to hit the sack. Any advice is appreciated.



Thanks guys & gals.
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Ten Steps for Cleaning Up a Small Mercury Spill

1.Prior to cleanup, remove metal items like jewelry and watches since they can be permanently damaged by mercury. Put on old clothes, old shoes and latex or vinyl gloves. Put a clean change of clothes and shoes along with a clean trash bag in a safe place outside the contaminated area. You will change out of your old clothes and shoes and put them in the trash bag at the end of the cleanup.

2.Identify items in the spill area that can be cleaned and those that cannot. Non-porous surfaces (finished wood, plastic or concrete) can be cleaned following this guidance. Porous surfaces or fabric-covered items (upholstery, carpeting, stuffed animals, pillows, backpacks, unfinished wood, cork, cardboard) are difficult to clean because mercury beads may be trapped in these materials. If you decide you cannot clean these items, place them in plastic trash bags or cover or wrap them in a double layer of plastic and carefully seal with tape. Place the wrapped items in a secure place, preferably outdoors and out of the reach of children and pets. You should consult with a trained professional about how to decontaminate or dispose of these items safely.

3.Wear gloves to carefully pick up the larger pieces of broken glass and what remains of the broken device and place them on a paper towel. Gently fold the paper towel around these pieces so you can pick the bundle up and place it in a zipper-type plastic bag. Use index cards or stiff cardboard to push smaller pieces of glass and mercury beads together into a pile. Shine a flashlight at an angle to locate beads of mercury. The beads will reflect light from the flashlight. Check for mercury in cracks or in hard-to-reach areas where beads may be hidden or trapped. Check a wide area beyond the spill.

4.Use the eyedropper to collect mercury beads and place them in the plastic bag. Hold the eyedropper at an angle to draw the mercury into the tip. Keep the eyedropper at an angle to stop the mercury from rolling back out until you can put the mercury into the plastic bag. Wrap tape (sticky side out) around your gloved fingers and carefully use it to pick up any remaining glass or beads. Check again with the flashlight to be sure that no beads of mercury remain.

5.At this point, mercury beads may still be trapped in cracks or crevices on irregular surfaces. Sprinkle sulfur powder over the contaminated area and rub it gently all over the surface and into the cracks with a paper towel. Sulfur powder binds with mercury. Use a paper towel dampened with water followed by wiping with another damp paper towel to clean up the sulfur and mercury. Place the used paper towels in a zipper-type plastic bag.

6.Put all the items that were used to pick up the mercury, including index cards or cardboard, eyedropper, contaminated tape, paper towels, and zipper-type bags into the trash bag. Carefully remove rubber gloves by grabbing them at the wrist and pulling them inside out as they come off. Place the used gloves in the trash bag.

7.Carefully seal the trash bag that contains the mercury contaminated waste and put it in a secure place, preferable outdoors and out of reach of children and pets until it can be disposed of safely.

8.If possible, open a window and use a fan to ventilate the area to the outdoors for 24-48 hours before resuming normal use. If possible, heat the area (for example, with a space heater) while still ventilating to the outdoors. Avoid blowing the exhaust back indoors or into other nearby residences.

9.Clothes or shoes that did not come in direct contact with liquid mercury should be removed and put into the trash bag that was left outside the contaminated area at the beginning of the cleanup. Close the trash bag and take it outdoors. Carefully remove the shoes and or clothing from the trash bag and air them out thoroughly outdoors for 24 to 48 hours. After the outdoor airing, items that are washable can then be laundered.

10.Dispose of contaminated items properly! Mercury-contaminated items should not be placed in the regular household trash. New York State Rules and Regulations control the disposal of mercury-containing items and waste. Contact your town or county officials for information about hazardous waste disposal in your community. Contact New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Waste Determination and Analysis Section at (518) 402-8633 for information about the Rules and Regulations.
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If you've gotten up what you can see, that's a very good start. To get the very small pieces, do a sweeping pattern with a damp sponge. Press it firmly on the flooring and pull inward and advance onward, working youself slowly to the center. Use duct tape wrapped around your hand, sticky-side out, to collect the fine scatterings left in your circle's center. Careful with the sponge. Put it and the tape in a ziplock and dispose of it properly. To make yourself feel even better, the duct tape trick works well on something like a Swiffer pad. Wrap it around the base sticky-side out and tamp it in a pattern to cover the entire floor. Change tape as needed.
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Oh, sure, if you want to do it the easy way...


:-) :-) :-)
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I work in a lab, Tom, and we have half a dozen spill kits for Hg. You could spend all day doing it the right way or half an hour doing it the efficient way. Just don't eat it or inhale it (which it nearly impossible due to it's specific gravity and it's tendency not to float in air) and it's just another metal. Well, except it's a liquid at room temp. The salts are really toxic but Ken shouldn't have any of those.

Ken, duct tape is your friend!
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+1

In the old days we'd hold mercury metal in our hands.

Vaporized mercury, salts, and especially organomercury compounds (methyl/dimethyl mercury) are quite toxic.

By the 1800s, mercuric nitrate was widely used to soften fur for hats. The resulting exposure of workers lead to a classic syndrome and the phrase "mad as a hatter." In Danbury, Connecticut, a center of hat making, the effects of exposure were characterized as "Danbury Shakes." It was not until 1941 that the use of mercury nitrate in hat making was banned in most states.

http://www.mercuryinschools.uwex.edu...g_in_world.htm
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Sprin thanks Tom. I had read this previously though I missed the sulfur part until I read your post.
I picked up most of what could be easily seen, or not so easy, last night. I know there are still tiny pieces which I couldn't get up with cards and plastic dust pan.

How serious is the concern about air quality with something this small?

Amazing how we could play with it years ago now I have websites making think I have biological spill.
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Air quality should be fine. Elemental mercury is the safest form. Now, a busted fluorescent will blast you a shot of mercury vapor. In any case, it's a very minute exposure, if any at all. Your mercury problem comes from the fish you eat and the coal-powered plant down the road.

It's good you asked, though. Peace of mind!
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Good job on the assist, Jamie!

Most? Crap, I probably got my hats from the state that still allows it....It's the "Douchebagistan Shakes"! :-)
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Great, I have a nuclear disaster in my basement and you're making jokes.:-)
:-)
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I used to save mercury from mercury switches every time I changed a thermostat or retrofitted an old piece of equipment.
I played with and let the kids play with it.
Now it's like a federal crime.
Aspartame damn near killed me, and it's okay to drink that stuff every day.
You're damned if you do, damned if you don't. :-)
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I remember in Chem lab, someone broke a thermometer and the professor cleared out the lab. Only the TA's were allowed in to clean it up. I was thinking, "big deal, I used to play with the stuff in the palm of my hand."
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You're not kidding. After the container broke I looked online to see the easiest way to pick it up off the floor and everything I read makes it into a chemical train wreck situation. I wasn't much worried until I starting reading on picking it up.

I believe my dad would bring it home from work and we'd toss it on the kiitchen table and roll it back and forth.
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That's a government employee's ten step program for you! Scare the **** out of you every time.


Seangar used to play with it and he's still functioning! Just b/c he used to be a hansom fellow and now he looks like Willie Nelson had nothing to do with the mercury: that was from playing with benzene to boost his octane.:-)
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45 years ago it wasn't a problem. I remember playing with mercury that fell on the floor when I broke my toys that contained it. Now if you spill some you have created a Superfund site and millions of dollars must be spent to clean the area. Anyway this repeats the gist of what has been said above but I still felt like typing it....probably due to mercury exposure when I was a child. :-)
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Kinda like DDT. Both were harmless in their day, but now they're both the start of the end of the world.
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It was probably the paint chips, George.
You quit eating them yet? :-)
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DDT really was an environmental hazard. It screws up eggs. It's why there were no turkeys and the fish were nearly gone around here.
It's also to blame for anything the sharp decline in all things that came from eggs.
It's been done away with in my time, and as an outdoorsman and anal scientist who has always lived in farm country in the sticks, I've got to see the resultant rebound myself.
I still won't eat fish from the Great Lakes, but we used tons for our trapline when we were kids. Raccoons love mercury. :-)
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I've drank and smoked cigars with Sean, what do you consider functioning? :-)

The wife works at UPS in safety and just spoke with the head guy for these problems and he didn't feel this small amount would amount to much.
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Not trying to start a debate or anything, Scott, but DDT has saved billions of lives. I'd go without eggs if it meant billions not dying from malaria. BTW, there is also no proven link between DDT and cancer. I couldn't tell you about cancer and mercury, though.


End thread jack.:-)
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