What to do if a mercury thermometer breaks

These items can save your life or your loved ones.

What to do if a mercury thermometer breaks:

1. Get people and animals out of the room.
2. Open all windows in the room and close all doors to the room.
3. Put on rubber, nitrile, or latex gloves and carefully pick up the pieces from the thermometer, then place them on a piece of paper towel. Roll it up and place it in a plastic bag that can be sealed.
4. Use a piece of cardboard to collect all the mercury particles. If the room is dark, use a flashlight.
5. Use a syringe to collect the mercury crumbs. Then, gently squeeze the mercury out of the syringe onto a damp paper towel. Use two sheets of cardboard to wrap the mercury in a towel. Place the towel in the zip bag, close and indicate that the mercury is in there.
6. After you have collected large particles
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   mercury, take shaving cream and apply it to the brush. Brushing the contaminated area will help collect the very small particles of mercury.
7. Also put the scotch tape and brush in a zip bag and mark.
8. Wash the place where the thermometer broke with a soap and soda solution (400 g of soap and 500 g of soda ash per 10 liters of water).
9. After cleaning the room, ventilate it for 24 hours, but behind a closed door.
10. All items contaminated with mercury must be taken to the disposal points. Their addresses can be obtained from the employees of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine or from the District State Administration.

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What not to do:

• Do not throw the thermometer into the garbage chute!
• Do not sweep away the mercury with a broom - because of the hard rods of the broom, the balls of mercury will turn into mercury dust!
• Do not vacuum up mercury!
• Do not ventilate the room if you did not have time to collect the balls, as due to the draft they will scatter throughout the room.
• In no case do not let mercury go down the drain, it will settle in the pipes and in this case it is almost impossible to get rid of it.

You will be interested to know:

• what to do if the thermometer crashed (advice from Dr. Komarovsky);
• what is the danger of batteries for humans;
• how to choose a thermometer for a child?