Your thoughts on Mercury.

[Charger_Fan]

In one of today's local news stories was the following;

Classes were canceled today at Vernal Middle School while crews cleaned up a mercury spill in the school parking lot.
    A team from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was deployed from Denver to clean the site, which district business administrator Randy Upton said may include tearing up carpet in a few places.
    A parent reported the toxin about 8 a.m. Thursday. When staff from the TriCounty Health Department confirmed mercury was present later that morning, classes were dismissed and students were sent home.
    A teacher reported soreness on the roof of her mouth, but Joseph Shaffer, director and health officer for TriCounty, said it was unlikely the teacher will be diagnosed with mercury poisoning.
    Two to 3 tablespoons of mercury were spread over an area about 20 yards by 40 yards, extending from a sidewalk on the school's west side into a staff parking lot, Shaffer said. Glass, possibly from some kind of container, was found in the area, but Shaffer said it couldn't be determined whether the glass was related to the spill.
    The toxic element is not used in science classes at Vernal Middle School, Upton said.
    Vernal Police Chief Gary Jensen said he wants to determine if the spill was intentional or an accident.
    "It's a little weird," he said. "Clearly we want to see where the mercury came from and why."
    The middle school, located about 175 miles east of Salt Lake City, enrolls about 800 students.
    Mercury exposure can cause irritation to the lining of the mouth, the lungs, the airways and the eyes; increased blood pressure and pulse; nausea; vomiting, diarrhea, and rashes. Acute exposure to mercury vapor can affect the brain and central nervous system, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_4236557





Okay, so...when I was a kid, my friends & I used to take apart old thermostats (the kind in a house, with mercury switches) & collect the mercury in small bottles. I guess mainly because we could & it was something to do. We used to put some in the palm of our hands (about the size of a quarter or so) & mess around with it...you know things like, break it up into a bunch of tiny balls & then push them all back together to make one big ball again.
I bet I did it a hundred times.
My collection eventually ended up being about a half pint of the stuff, my friends actually had more than I did!

We were told to be careful & not get it in our eyes, mouth or noses...so we didn't. Astonishingly enough, I'm still in pretty good health where internal organs are concerned (my back hurts, though) & I'm not dead...or at least I don't think I am (pinch,pinch).

Now, I'm not saying that mercury isn't poisonous, or that it should be played with freely like I did. I realize that it's a bit worse than I knew as a kid...but honestly, is it really necessary to evacuate an entire school because there's possibly 3 tablespoons of the stuff spilled in a 20x40 YARD area OUTSIDE the building???
Geez, just suck it up with a shop vac (might wanna wear a resperator just in case) & be done with it!

Maybe because Pluto's no longer considered a planet that mercury should now be considered the equivalent of anthrax?? Or maybe I really AM dead & that's why my Charger never get's finished?
Man, if that's the case & I'm dead, I'm gonna quit going to work.

[Silver R/T]

I heard about it being lethal too.

[derailed]

I jsut read some article not to long ago now where its a bad idea to give younger kids tuna fish on a regular basis because of the mercury level found in certain fish. Been known to cause health problems. Figures, thats about the only healthy food my son will eat.

[Old Moparz]

Frank Zappa's dead, he died from cancer. His dad had a civilian job within the military, & used to bring home all kinds of things from work. Zappa's autobiography mentioned that he also played with mercury, watching the beads roll around the floor, gathering them up & doing what you said you used to do. He also mentioned how there were 50 pound sacks of DDT around the house, & that his father claimed it was safe enough to eat from the sack.  

Maybe people over-react to toxic spills, asbestos covered pipes in the basement, bats in the bedroom, & leaded gas, but I bet there's some truth to a lot of it. It might be best to simply avoid certain things, especially if we already know about the dangers. Yeah, we all have to die from something, but I don't want to glow in the dark & watch my liver get flushed because it melted the last time I pee before I'm buried.

Go have an organic grape, it'll wash out some of the mercury.

[bull]

We're all gonna die!

[Mike DC]

 
I wouldn't be surprised if mercury is bad for you.  But it's another one of those things where the effects are cumulative and it probably takes a series of things to give you cancer over it.


Oh, well.  IMHO if you REALLY wanna be healthy, then you should go live in a dry cave and eat nothing but lettuce & water.  Anything else you could possibly do on this earth will probably mess you up somehow.

 

[253862656971]

Grease will give you cancer too.  Next time anyone on this board goes to work on their car I fully expect them to wear rubber gloves.  It's the law! 

We got a visit from the DENR the other day (basically epa).  They told us the fluorecent lightbulbs we use have to be disposed of like hazardous waste because of a slight mercury content.  But there is an exemption for bulbs with green ends.  Oh and the local mall, which is using these same mercury bulbs does not have to dispose of bulbs as hazardous waste.

I'm sure mercury is bad for you but I think a lot of these things get blown WAAAAY out of proportion.  Every piece of food you get from the store has a cancer causing agent in it.  I saw a pack of gum once that had a warning that gum has been shown to cause cancer in lab rats. 

[Daytona R/T SE]

There was a bottle of mercury in the science lab when I was in junior high school, I can remember the teacher dumping a small amount out on each lab table and encouraging the students to roll it around, break it into smaller balls and then roll it back together into a larger puddle.  This wasn't anything new to me, my father used to bring home bottles of mercury from work for me to play with...of course I didn't eat any of it, but I sure handled a lot of it....no problems...

Evacuate a school ??  No!

   The world is just turning into a bunch of wimps...

[Wakko]

In '94 some dude at Florida Atlantic University (my alma mater) stole some mercury from the lab and it was found in his dorm room.  They shut the dorm down for a MONTH while they cleaned it up and had it all tested.  The students had to live in a hotel across town adn get bussed and were not even allowed in to get their clothes!!!   Insane.

Interesting website:
http://www.mercuryinschools.uwex.edu/curriculum/school_info.htm

[BigBlockSam]

when i was a kid, my father dragged me down to the basement and pointed  to the pipes covered in asbestos . we had tons of them. he said get a knife , cut all that stuff off the pipes and put it out in the garbage. it took me all day. now to remove asbestos, it's rocket science.
and costs tons of money. he also gave me a bottle of  mercury to play with. i'm starting to think my dad didn't like me much. 

[Johnny SixPack]

Worst run in I ever had with mercury was a broken thermometer when I was 10 yrs old.

Cleaned it up and threw it away in the garbage before my parents came home (probably go to jail for doing that now, eh?  ).

My Pop asked me if it had touched me, and I told him it had, but I'd washed my hands, and he didn't seem freaked out.

What really scares me is my grandfather's old storage shed. 

I know there's some crazy sh*t in there (i.e. DDT).

Who do you call about something like that?

[dodge freak]

The way I see it is you only live once so why screw around with something that might be harmful if there is no need too ? Much rather be safe than sorry later on. Mercury is toxic and there is no need for it today-you want to play around with something get some play dough.

I want to live till I am 99 - most likely won't but it would be nice. If you die at 79 - thats 20 years you could had have !!

[Drache]

if I remember correctly, if to drop mercury into a sink full of water it will go shooting around the water like a little speedboat all the while releasing a VERY TOXIC gas before finally going POP and spraying itself all over the room.

[Charger_Fan]

Knowing what I know now, I don't think I'd intentionally play with the stuff & wouldn't recommend that kids should play with it either. However, if I happened to spill some in the driveway, I don't think it's a good basis for evacuating the neighborhood until it's cleaned up.

Apparently, as stated in Wakko's link, my plan of using a shop vac to clean it up just might not be as good an idea as originally thought. Carb cleaner...that fixes everything.

[Johnny SixPack]

Carb cleaner...that fixes everything.

B12 to the rescue! 

[BigBlackDodge]

Why was the Mad Hatter mad in Alice in wonderland?.......................................mercury!

http://www.hgtech.com/Information/Mad%20Hatter.htm


BBD

[Charger_Fan]

Now THAT's a bit of trivia I've never heard before.
No wonder top hats went out of fashion.

[Lowprofile]

See what happens when you play with chemicals!

[Brock Samson]

they haven't had a decent car since...
i dunno was the Marauder a good car? i always thought they were too heavy...

[Orange_Crush]

if I remember correctly, if to drop mercury into a sink full of water it will go shooting around the water like a little speedboat all the while releasing a VERY TOXIC gas before finally going POP and spraying itself all over the room.

That's sodium.

[Steve P.]

Let's see... My thoughts on Mercury is that I wish it would drop some.. It's been a damn hot summer here!!

[Johnny SixPack]

Let's see... My thoughts on Mercury is that I wish it would drop some.. It's been a damn hot summer here!!

Amen!

[Drache]

if I remember correctly, if to drop mercury into a sink full of water it will go shooting around the water like a little speedboat all the while releasing a VERY TOXIC gas before finally going POP and spraying itself all over the room.

That's sodium.

My mistake! Here's a neat page showing what sodium does with water!

http://www.pc.chemie.uni-siegen.de/pci/versuche/english/v44-1-1.html

[Ponch ®]

Your thoughts on Mercury.

Great voice. 70's stuff rocks, but he really gayed it up in the 80's.

[MichaelRW]

The typical over reaction because you have to over react in today's PC crazy world due to the damn trial lawyers.