What to do if a mercury thermometer broke at home

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Have you ever broken a thermometer? If not, then written below need to know that in the case of such a household "accident" is guaranteed to protect yourself from trouble due to chronic poisoning with residues of mercury. If so, consult the recommendations and determine how correct your actions were to clean the room of mercury. Many people are too carelessly cleaning the remnants of the thermometer, which is why they suffer seriously afterwards, not understanding where the health problems come from.


Contents:


How to remove
  • Eliminate the spread of mercury vapor
  • Ensure optimum room temperature
  • Personal safety measures
  • Means for collecting
  • collection algorithm If the thermometer is broken on the carpet
  • What can not be done
  • What is the danger of mercury
  • Symptoms of poisoning
  • How to clean

    How to understand that the mercury thermometer broke if the trouble happened the first time? Even with the fragments that have disappeared into the unknown direction, it is easy to determine that the substance on the floor is mercury: on an equal place it spreads onto silver balls of various diameters, very sensitive to the impact - they immediately try to roll out because of the touch. Because of this property, mercury was nicknamed "alive".

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    When a light beam hits, for example, from a flashlight, mercury "beads" shine, as if they were made of silver. On an inclined plane, the dangerous contents of the broken thermometer are rapidly directed to a flat surface.

    So, what to do and whom to call, if the apartment crashed mercury thermometer in the apartment. You can call the Emergency Ministry or independently properly eliminate the source of health hazard, if there is no contraindication to such work. Direct cleaning of mercury is preceded by several actions.

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    To exclude the spread of mercury vapor

    At the first stage, it is necessary to exclude the spread of mercury vapors in the airspace of the whole apartment:

    • For the time of neutralization of a hazardous substance, households should be forbidden to enter the room where they broke a thermometer( if possible,).
    • Close the doors to adjoining rooms to prevent the transfer of vapors by draft.
    • Switch off the fan.
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    Ensure optimum room temperature

    • Activate the air conditioner to create a temperature in the room no more than +18 degrees.
    • If an unpleasant incident with a thermometer happens in the warm season and there is no air conditioning in the room, then the window should be opened wide( provided that it is cooler outside), but exclude the possibility of a draft.
    • Use the blind to reduce the amount of sunlight entering the room.
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    Personal safety measures

    • If the one who will remove the mercury floors of clothing and sleeves are long, you need to change clothes.
    • Long hair to clean under a scarf or braid in a braid and to fix on a nape.
    • In the absence of shoe covers, wrap your feet in polyethylene( packing bags, garbage bags).
    • Be sure to wear gloves( can be ordinary medical, but preferably rubber).
    • Wear a gauze bandage or tie a moistened cotton handkerchief or scarf folded several times.

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    Tools for collecting

    Important! All that mercury was removed after the end of the procedure is utilized together with the collected substance - this is a prerequisite.

    Ragged rag or old rag.
  • Rubber pear of any size or syringe.
  • Adhesive tape, sticking plaster( on the sticky side it is convenient to collect small balls of mercury from an even surface and from cracks).
  • A small sheet of cardboard( a shovel replacement).
  • Small brush or wool block( replacement with a broom).
  • A half-liter can of water, in which are dissolved ½ bar of laundry soap and 50 grams of baking soda. The recipe looks like home, but it's really effective.
  • Wrapped in a transparent polyethylene flashlight to detect a hazardous substance in the cracks and under the furniture( when light hits, mercury glitters).
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    • collection algorithm Clean the rags with a clean soda-soap solution and place it at the doorstep to the room where treatment is required.
    • The remainder of the thermometer should be placed in a glass container with a neutralizing solution.
    • Accumulation of mercury balls sweep away with a scrap of cotton or a brush in the "scoop", all collected( along with possible debris) pour into the jar.
    • Separate drops to draw in a pear or syringe, then drain the substance into a jar.
    • Lighting the flashlight, make sure there are no silver balls in the slots under the skirting boards( if any), between the floorboards and under the furniture.
    • After collecting all visible "beads", close the jar with a plastic lid, "scoop" and a brush in the bag and fasten it tightly.
    • For an hour, ventilate the room, after thoroughly washing the floor.
    • Ventilate the living area and wash the floors with a new neutralizing solution repeat 4-6 times more.
    • After each cleaning, it is important to rinse your mouth with a clean soda solution and take a shower.
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    Treat the place and wash the floor where the mercury thermometer broke, followed by a soap-soda solution, each time a new one. Therefore, in order not to increase the number of worries, you need to immediately prepare a couple of buckets of this liquid. Pour the new portion of the concentrate into the supply container only with clean dishes.

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    If the thermometer is broken on the carpet

    • It is necessary to roll the floor covering with the outer edges inside and take it out of the room. After the assembly of visible remnants of mercury from the carpet spread out under the open sky, the product is left to ventilate for 2-3 months.
    • If possible, while one person is dealt with the carpet, the second person must conduct a wet cleaning of the room where the cover was laid. First, visually detect the presence of residual mercury and neutralize them, and then wash the floors.
    What harm does an electronic cigarette without nicotine do? Http://woman-l.ru/vred-elektronnoj-sigarety/
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    What not to do

    Strictly forbidden:

    • Take mercury by unprotected hands.
    • Blow mercury out of hard-to-reach places with a hair dryer or a vacuum cleaner( a strong air stream will grind and disperse mercury, then it immediately gets into the atmosphere of the room).
    • Connect to the cleaning process of a pregnant woman at any time( the concentration of mercury in the room immediately after the deformation of the thermometer instantly rises to dangerous for health).
    • Instruct deactivating cleaning for children, the elderly, suffering from diseases of the nervous system or kidneys.
    • If the mercury thermometer is damaged, the cleaner can not be cleaned with a vacuum cleaner, even the most modern, or a broom.
    • Pour solution with collected mercury into the sewage system, open reservoir.
    • Wash in a washing machine items that have been exposed to mercury or cleaned.
    • Dispose of the container with the substance, tools, deformed thermometer and its fragments in the garbage disposal, waste tank.
    • Even if the mercury thermometer is broken inside, and its external bulb is intact, only specialists should dispose of it.
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    The broken mercury thermometer and all that you collected dangerous "beads" can be handed over to the address that is required to inform you when applying to the local SES or the Ministry of Emergency Situations. You can also take it to an organization dealing with the disposal of hazardous substances. It is advisable to eliminate the clothes that the person who was cleaning( or leave it to weather for 3 months) was dressed.
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    What is the danger of mercury

    If a mercury thermometer is damaged, is it dangerous to do nothing to dispose of the leaked substance? Yes! The substance was assigned 1 group of harmfulness. Excess amount of mercury in the human body is formed by inhaling its vapors, contact with the exposed skin.

    Health problems after poisoning with mercury vapor:

    • . Deviations in the thyroid gland.
    • Loosening, bleeding gums.
    • Shortness of breath, cough, tenderness behind the sternum.
    • Poor appetite.
    • Irreversible pathological processes in the liver, kidneys.
    • Memory impairment, insomnia, depressive state.
    • Risk to the life of the fetus in pregnant women( paresis, vision problems, disorders in the neurological, cardiovascular system of the newborn, fetal death).
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    Symptoms of poisoning

    If the thermometer broke and you still breathe in poisonous vapors, the obvious symptoms of mercury poisoning are:

    • metallic smack;
    • abundant drooling;
    • shortness of breath;
    • nausea;
    • diarrhea.

    Signs of acute poisoning:

    • Difficulty in breathing, coughing with bloody sputum, pulmonary edema.
    • Trembling of limbs, tongue, eyelids and whole body.
    • Temperature increase.
    • Reduced overall tone.
    • Difficulties with remembering information, retardation.
    • Diarrhea with blood.
    • Pain in the abdominal cavity.
    • Vomiting.
    • Ulceration of the gastrointestinal mucosa.
    • Salivation. Necrosis in the kidneys, liver.
    • Coma.

    Clearing the room of all the drops of mercury is not so easy, so sometimes the "silver ball" goes unnoticed. In such cases, the inhabitants of the room for years get chronic poisoning - mercurialism. To diagnose it it is possible on following signs:

    • Constant delicacy, the depressed mood, frequent headaches.
    • Vertigo.
    • Enlarged thyroid gland.
    • Rapid urination.
    • Profuse sweating.
    • Puffiness of the extremities.
    • Gum bleeding, systematic stomatitis.
    • Unstable heart rhythm.
    • Emotional instability, shyness and irritability.
    • Trembling of limbs, eyelids, lips.

    A mercury ball can be accidentally consumed in food, but at the same time stay healthy. Since for the human body the most dangerous are the vapors of this substance. At a temperature above +18 gadusov, the metal begins to actively evaporate, rapidly saturating the atmosphere, from which it is more difficult to exclude mercury than to limit the rate of change in the state of the substance.

    If there is a concern that you can not clean the room yourself from the presence of mercury, call the MES.

    And having bought an electronic thermometer, you can forget about all the troubles that can happen due to a broken mercury medical device.

    • Mar 05, 2018
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