Disposal of Mercury

Some 30 years ago I broke a manometer used for balancing carbs and collected the mercury into a glass jar which has been living in the shed. I recently became a bit bothered about the potential risk should someone disturb it when I am not around, so decided to take it to the local recycling centre after establishing that they would accept it so long as it was inside a sealed container. To my supply the attendant took the jar and instead of taking it to a secure cabinet as I expected just threw it in the metal recycling skip. I can understand that mercury is a metal but so is plutonium and one wouldn't expect that to be thrown in with the scrap. Perhaps the explaination lies in the fact that the risks are to a degree mitigated by mechanical handling and adequate ventilation from the time the scrap is deposited in the skips, or alternatively the handling and storage precautions ISTR from my schooldays were OTT.

j
Reply to
djornsk
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What a waste!

Reply to
djc

The bloke was an idiot. Write to the local authority to ask if this is their approved method for handling waste mercury.

Reply to
Onetap

approved method for handling waste mercury.

+1. While the dangers of trivial mercury poisoning are likely overstated (in the example cited, evacuation of a building because of a broken fluor tube is definitely OTT), I'm not too keen on the idea of a minion simply tossing a glass bottle into a skip, where it will break and leak its contents over everything else, likely finding its way out of the skip at some point and into the soil. Pretty stupid, really.
Reply to
Grimly Curmudgeon

approved method for handling waste mercury.

+1.

Depending a bit on the quantity, I suppose. A single clinical thermometer isn't going to make a lot of difference, but enough to collect in a bottle *ought* to have triggered a question.

When I had my last "work" medical, the consultant was lamenting the fact that she wasn't allowed to use a mercury sphygmomanometer at NHS hospitals any more and had had to go over to an electronic one, which she regarded as a poor substitute.

Reply to
newshound

How much do you think they're paid? How smart a chemist do you think you get for that money?

Yes, it's crap. Yes, they should either take things and deal properly, or they shouldn't take it. Throwing mercury in a skip is nowhere near an acceptable handling process. Yes, the vapour hazard is real and yes the paperwork says so too.

If you have spare mercury, sell it. There is a trade, it is desirable. If you have mercury to dispose of or to clean up, this is quite easy - mix it with yellow sulphur from a garden shop. Sprinkling sulphur and then brushing up is standard spill cleanup practice.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

My GP (who is pretty 'up to date') prefers a mercury one and still uses such.

Reply to
Bob Eager

approved method for handling waste mercury.

from whence it came in the first place.

Reply to
Frank Erskine

So far so good. Although you would have been better off selling it to a place that recycles waste mercury - it is a fairly valuable if toxic liquid metal. Your local school or university chemical lab would have been a better bet for knowing what to do with it.

I have seen Maxwell's spur demonstrated live in a classroom and that arcs and sparks into hot liquid mercury. That is dangerous.

Clueless monkey with single digit IQ and life expectancy to match.

I have also seen the morons at our recycling tip putting asbestos cement boards into a crusher covered head to toe in white dust. No PPE :(

Mercury metal isn't all that bad unless you breath the fumes. Mercury salts and especially organomercury compounds can be seriously deadly. An ICPMS practitioner was killed by a tiny leak in a protective glove working with methyl mercury a few years back.

Mercury metal was used until fairly recently for zenith transit telescopes and has made a resurgence for spinning mirror scopes eg:

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explanation at the tip is that they don't know WTF they are doing. The simplest way to make it inert is to mix it into zinc powder to make a crude version of dental amalgam which is then more or less inert.

Your mercury actually had resale value and should have been sold to someone who knew how to handle it rather than handed over to a moron.

Regards, Martin Brown

Reply to
Martin Brown

The waste recycling guy should not have done that, but is probably too clueless to know any better.

It isn't good if you spill it indoors, and it spends weeks evaporating into the air you breath.

Things like this happen, even though each person has 1000 times more mercury in their fillings than there is in one CFL - the quantity in a CFL is minute.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

Well, no.

play-dough would probably be hazardous in such circumstances.

The report doesn't say whether this was a private firm or an NHS premise.

Owain

Reply to
Owain

If you're referring to the 1997 Dartford incident, there was no leak in the glove. They were unaware that the latex glove was insufficient protection to prevent exposure to some 80 times the lethal dose from one drop.

The glove was porous to the single drop of dimethylmercury accidentally spilled on it, further experiments after the event showed that only the extremely heavy duty laminated nitrile gloves suitable for handling chemical weapons provided any protection whatsoever.

Reply to
Jake

On 14/08/2012 21:35, Andrew Gabriel wrote: ...

I don't have any amalgam fillings. Mine are either resin, glass, ceramic or precious metal.

Colin Bignell

Reply to
Nightjar

Have you ever put Mercury on a sheet of ally?

Hmm, I'm sure he is incorrect in putting it into the scrap. I mean if you gave him a jar of Sodium or similar in oil, would he pour out the oil and wonder where his face went?

Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

And how much mercury is in each dentist or dental nurse?

Reply to
polygonum

In message , djornsk writes

Yes, it will kill you as soon as reflecting your image

send it down here so I can safely dispose of it for you ...

Reply to
geoff

I dunno. Do you think it would be worth capturing one and rendering her down?

Owain

Reply to
Owain

We can't all be clever like you. Have a bit of humility.

Bill

Reply to
Bill Wright

When amalgum was common, exposed staff were probably having annual urine checks. If not, I'd expect the professionals to be pretty aware of the standard symptoms, as described by the manometer fixer.

Reply to
newshound

Far from it. Mercury is incredibly toxic and the operative was either an idiot or lacked basic training. I would report the matter to the local Environmental Health department.

Reply to
Peter Crosland

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