Mercury gives off toxic fumes. The problem is exacerbated when the liquid metal crumbles into small peas. They are difficult to spot in floor crevices, carpet piles or behind skirting boards.
If the thermometer has broken, and you have removed the grains "on top", you run the risk of getting chronic poisoning.
- Broom rods grind the drops into dust and carry them around the room.
- Collect with a vacuum cleaner - the particles will remain on the parts and will spread throughout the apartment during cleaning. In addition, the warm air makes the mercury evaporate more rapidly.
The symptoms of mercury intoxication are weakness, malaise, metal taste in the mouth, headaches and sore throat, increased salivation, nausea and vomiting. They can be easily confused with poisoning or attributed to stress. But if you ignore these signs, the problem will worsen.
- Trembling of fingers and eyelids will appear, then - arms and legs.
- Blood pressure (hypertension) will rise.
- You will quickly lose weight.
- Expose yourself to neuroses, kidney damage and heart failure.
How to collect mercury
If the thermometer breaks, first of all, protect yourself and your loved ones.
- Before entering the room, lay a damp cloth soaked in a solution of potassium permanganate (add 2 grams of potassium permanganate per liter of water). Thus, the mercury will not spread throughout the apartment.
- Close the doors and open the window if it's cold outside. Thus, slow down the evaporation. And do not create a draft, otherwise poisonous particles will scatter around the room.
- Put shoe covers or plastic bags on your feet and rubber gloves on your hands.
- Pour cold water or manganese solution into the jar, and place the fragments of the thermometer.
- Remove mercury from the walls towards the center of the room in any of the convenient ways:
- Roll the peas onto a piece of thick paper with a brush or moistened cotton swab. Then pour the "crop" into a container of water;
- use scotch tape: stick the strip to the floor and tear off;
- to remove the smallest balls behind skirting boards and in crevices, collect them in a rubber bulb or syringe.
Disinfect the room: wash the floor with a solution of potassium permanganate (20 grams of potassium permanganate per 10 liters of water); then, when dry, - soap and soda solution. It is not difficult to prepare it:
- rub a bar of laundry soap and pour ten liters of warm water;
- stir to dissolve the shavings and add one hundred grams of baking soda.
You will have to wash the floors with a disinfecting solution for several days. And "clean up" yourself, because willy-nilly you breathed in poisonous vapors. To remove mercury toxins from your body, do the following.
- Take 3-4 tablets of activated charcoal. They adsorb toxic substances.
- Drink plenty of fluids.
How to dispose of a thermometer
When you remove the mercury from the floor, close the jar tightly and put it in a cool place. Do not dispose of it in the garbage chute or pour the contents down the drain. It settles in a dense layer on the walls of the drain pipes. Cleaning them is difficult and costly.
2 grams of evaporated mercury pollutes 10 thousand cubic meters of air.
Call the Sanitary Epidemiological Station or the emergency number 112 (free). Tell the dispatcher that the thermometer has crashed. He will tell you the address of the company that utilizes mercury.
Useful article: "Which electronic thermometer is better and more accurate in determining the temperature"
Watch a video review of mercury and electrothermometers
