On Jun 13, 3:48 pm, "J. Clarke" wrote:
On Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:13:39 -0400, Bill
wrote:

[...]

He also gave me mercury to clean up coins
with.

[...]

I remember as a child PLAYING with those "cute" mercury balls when a
thermometer accidentally broke !!! Who knew, back then.

Metallic mercury is pretty innocuous--it's the compounds that are
dangerous, and the pure metal isn't terribly reactive. A kid in my
high school _drank_ some of the stuff. Didn't seem to do him any
harm, he'd done so much LSD that it was hard to tell.

The problem is that metallic mercury is somewhat volatile. As mercury
vaporizes, it forms salts, which are quite hazardous.

Getting out the hazmat team to clean up a broken thermometer is pretty much bureaucrats gone wild.

Not really, given they're the ones who know what to do with the stuff.
Dumping it down the drain is a nonstarter.

Chris
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--John
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