So is there any hope for Kalhoun? Sounds like he’s a goner. I’ve got dibs on his stapler!
By now, most counties seem to have household hazmat collection programs that will take just about anything* off your hands - old paint, oil, cleaners, etc. And mercury. Ours will even give you a free digital fever thermometer or a free programmable thermostat when you bring in the mercury-filled version.
Google up
“<your county name> county” “household hazardous waste”
eg: “San Francisco county” “household hazardous waste”
- Our program won’t take medical, explosive or radioactive wastes, for example.
I’m a she, and this thread certainly explains a lot about the time between my obsession with mercury and…well…who I am today! :eek:
My mom broke a mercury thermometer once and apparently the mercury jumped up and coated her wedding band. I guess the jeweler was able to remove it?? How is mercury retrieved in that case?
Sorry about that. It was the mercury speaking.
Any truth to the rumor that Mercurochrome (which doesn’t seem to be sold anymore) had mercury in it?
As a kid I always had only 2 choices for a bad cut. Iodine or mercurochrome.
I always wanted mercurochrome. My parents always wanted to put iodine on it.
Parents almost always won out. Gawd did that stuff sting!!
Put it in a bowl and poke with a pencil, because the stuff is really cool. When I was a kid I accidently broke a thermometer (sp?) and messed around with the mercury that was in it. It was super neat! Dangerous? Bah! I’ve got a double-digit I.Q., so I’m doing fine.
From the mercury link given above:
So, you could chug it and probably be okay. Personally, I wouldn’t touch it w/ my fingers, but I’m a hand-washing type of guy.
Mercurochrome does indeed contain mercury - as does thimerosal/merbromin, another antiseptic / preservative. Mercury is a great antibacterial agent (aside from that whole neurotoxin issue), so it shows up in many places.
The two biggest health risks to us are from exposure to:
- mercury vapors - mercury vaporizes readily at room temperature.
- methylmercury - mercury in our waterways is converted to methylmercury through a bacterial process. Methylmercury is much more toxic than elemental, and builds up in fish and other organisms. Our main methylmercury exposure comes from eating contaminated fish.
I’ve played with mercury from a broken thermometer as a young kid. I remember pushing it around the wooden parket floor with my fingers and being fascinated by the little balls of liquid metal, until my parents came to sweet it up.
Good times… goooood times. 
Come to think of it, pehaps that’s what made me the evil villain that I am today. BWAHAHAHA!!!
Given your user name, QuickSilver, we should have known you’d have an affinity for mercury.
I’m another who played with mercury as a young child – it was lots of fun. I don’t have the slightest idea how my mother got rid of it after she took it away from me. I think she flushed it down the toilet… apparently (according to the link earlier in the thread) that wasn’t a good idea!
Since mercury has an affinity for lead, use it to clean your revolver barrel.
[Mr. Hainey] What, you don’t have a revolver…? [/Mr. Hainey]
Random tidbit: Mad as a Hatter!
I can’t stop laughing!!
When we were kids some work man down the street at some kind of power station (I was under seven) gave my big brother and his friends some mercury. This was before it was well-known to be dangerous. They played with it. Then once when my mother was in the shower or something we thought my little sister got ahold of it. Boy, was there a panic attack!! They thought she had swallowed it or something. But then they found it in the sink.
I forget what we did with it after that.
aruvqan, I have removed your detailed instructions for making an explosive. Please do not post them again.
Aaaahhhh…mercurochrome. My mother used to draw a kitty on my boo-boo thinking I would be fooled into believing that it didn’t sting. I hated cats until I was 20!
Winkie already answered the factual question. One kid in class came in with half of a mayo jar filled with it. It was fun to watch people lift it, expecting it to be as heavy as a jar filled with water. I’m not sure how much you absorb through your skin by handling it, I suspect casual contact isn’t a death sentence.
Since others made bad jokes, how about this:
Did you hear that Ford recalled all their Mercury cars? They had traces of tuna!
If I understand correctly, and I beg to be corrected if not, liquid mercury per se is not dangerous in and of itself. The problem is that it volatilizes quite easily, and mercury vapor is in fact quite toxic.
So having a small container of mercury, or even an unencapsulated globule, is not cause for calling in the E.P.A. per se, but one should take precautions to avoid inhaling over or near it, and attempt to pick it up and dispose of it without “breaking” it into smaller globules, which of course have more surface area and therefore more potential area for volatilization.
I’m an HVAC guy and replace many mercury t-stats.
At least one of my suppliers has a barrell in the showroom to discard old mercury stats. Maybe a supply house will take it from you.