At room temperature, mercury releases toxic fumes that enter the body through the respiratory tract.
If no measures are taken after the thermometer breaks, the liquid metal will poison the air and gradually accumulate in the body. The problem is aggravated by the fact that mercury crumbles into small drops that are easy to miss in floor crevices, carpet pile, and behind baseboards.
Symptoms of mercury poisoning may not be noticeable for a long time.
Health problems may appear within a couple of months after direct contact with mercury. Main symptoms: weakness, general malaise, loss of appetite, metallic taste in the mouth, headaches and sore throat, increased salivation, nausea and vomiting. As you can see, they can easily be attributed to stress, fatigue from work, or triviality.
But if mercury continues to accumulate, more serious problems: trembling of fingers, eyelids, then arms and legs, predisposition to mental illness, tuberculosis, atherosclerotic phenomena, damage to the liver and gallbladder, hypertension.
How to collect mercury
If a thermometer breaks, first of all, take children and animals out of the room and close the door so that mercury vapor does not escape into neighboring rooms. To prevent anyone from transferring droplets of mercury on their shoes, lay a rag soaked in a solution of potassium permanganate before entering.
Potassium permanganate solution
Add 2 grams of potassium permanganate to 1 liter of water and mix.
If it's cold outside, open the window. This will help slow down evaporation. One thing: under no circumstances should you allow a draft, which could cause mercury to fly throughout the room.
Put shoe covers or plastic bags on your feet and rubber gloves on your hands. Respiratory tract also needs protection. For example, a disposable mask with gauze soaked in a solution of potassium permanganate.
Take a glass jar with a lid (or any other sealed container), pour water or a solution of potassium permanganate into it and fold the fragments of the thermometer.
Take two sheets of paper and cotton wool soaked in a solution of potassium permanganate. Start collecting drops of mercury from the corners of the room towards the center. Using a cotton swab, push the drops onto the paper and whisk them into the jar. Instead of cotton wool, you can use regular tape: stick it on the floor where there is mercury and tear it off.
To collect all the mercury without any residue and get to the smallest drops in the cracks, use a syringe, a medical bulb with a fine tip, or a paint brush.
Close the jar of mercury tightly with a lid and place it in a cool place, preferably on the balcony. Do not throw it down the garbage disposal or pour its contents into the toilet.
How to treat a room and protect yourself
To ensure that not a trace of mercury remains in the room, treat the area where it was spilled. First - a solution of potassium permanganate: 20 grams of potassium permanganate per 10 liters of water. Apply it with a rag or using a spray bottle. After an hour, wipe the same area with soap and soda solution.
You will have to treat with potassium permanganate and soap-soda solution 2-3 times a day for several days.
Soap and soda solution
Grate a bar of soap and pour hot water and stir until the soap shavings are completely dissolved. Instead of regular soap, you can use liquid soap. Pour the mixture with 10 liters of water. Add 100 grams baking soda. Stir.
Since you yourself have been in an unsafe room for a long time, you need to do the following:
- Wash gloves and shoes with potassium permanganate and soap-soda solution.
- Rinse your mouth with a very weak solution of potassium permanganate.
- Brush your teeth thoroughly.
- Take 2–3 tablets activated carbon.
- Drink more fluids (tea, juice, coffee).
What not to do
- Do not sweep mercury with a broom. Hard rods will only grind drops of mercury into fine dust and spread throughout the room.
- Do not vacuum up mercury. During blowing, warm air causes mercury to evaporate even more intensely. In addition, its particles will remain on the engine parts and will spread throughout the apartment during cleaning.
- Do not throw the thermometer down the garbage disposal. Mercury will pollute the air throughout the house.
- Do not flush mercury down the toilet. It will settle in the sewer pipes, and it will be very difficult to remove it from there.
- Clothing that has been exposed to mercury should be thrown away. When washing, small metal particles will settle in.
- There is no need to rinse rags and other available materials in the sink. We have already talked about sewer pipes. Just gather everything tightly plastic bag and tie it tightly. You can't take it to the trash.
Where to return a broken thermometer
Neither the broken thermometer itself, nor the items with which you collected mercury, can be simply thrown into the trash. They need to be sent to a facility that can recycle mercury.
Call 112 to the Ministry of Emergency Situations and report that your thermometer has broken. They will write down your address, tell you what needs to be done, or come to your home if you are not sure that you were able to completely clean the premises. It's free.
True, EMERCOM employees are often busy with other matters and are not always able to promptly help with a broken thermometer. In this case, you can call a paid demercurization service in your city.
If you managed to clean up the mercury without outside help, call the nearest sanitary and epidemiological station. Experts will tell you the address where you can donate mercury.
24/7 hotline:8 (495) 565-37-58 (Moscow and Moscow Region)
8 (812) 507-66-84 (St. Petersburg)
Each point below is important. Everything is best described in the text, only a shortened version is given in the video:
1.1. Open the window in the room where the thermometer broke.
Close the door so that polluted air does not spread throughout the apartment (i.e. eliminate draft).
You need to ventilate for at least an hour, or better yet, longer.
In the following days and for another couple of months, it is advisable to keep the window slightly open.
1.2. Contain mercury spill areas. It sticks to metal surfaces and can also be easily spread around the house on the soles of your feet.
1.3. BEFORE collecting mercury:
- put it on latex gloves: the substance must not come into contact with the skin;
- to protect soles from contamination – shoe covers or plastic bags;
- to protect the respiratory system - a cotton-gauze bandage soaked in a soda solution or moistened with water.
1.4. As carefully as possible (!) collect mercury and all parts broken thermometer in glass jar of cold water. The water in the jar is needed to prevent the mercury from evaporating.
Small mercury droplets-balls can be assembled using:
- syringe,
- rubber bulb,
– two sheets of wet paper or newspaper,
- patch,
- scotch tape,
- wet cotton wool,
– plasticine,
– a damp brush for painting or shaving.
Carefully go through all the cracks! A syringe with a thick needle or a bulb with a thin tip will help you with this.
If there is a suspicion that mercury has gotten behind the baseboard or under parquet floorboards, be sure to remove them and check!
If cleaning takes longer, take a break every 15 minutes and go outside. Fresh air.
1.5. Close the jar tightly with the screw cap.
Hold her away from heating devices.
You can use a plastic jar with a tight lid if you don’t have a glass one on hand.
1.6. You cannot throw away a jar with a broken thermometer. It will then need to be handed over to a company involved in the disposal of mercury waste or to the Ministry of Emergency Situations (service “101”). Also, information about mercury collection points can be found in the DEZ.
1.7. Treat the mercury spill area with a solution bleach (preferred) or potassium permanganate.
For your own health it's important to do it right, so
see additional instructions.
What not to do:
2.1. You cannot create a draft in a room before you have removed the mercury there. See clause 1.1.
2.2. Do not throw a broken thermometer into the garbage chute!
2.3. You cannot sweep up the remains of the thermometer with a broom: the hard rods of the broom will only crush the mercury into fine toxic dust and spread it over an even larger area!
2.4. You cannot collect the remains with a vacuum cleaner: the air it blows will increase the evaporation of the poison.
In 90% of cases, a vacuum cleaner does not collect mercury, but only sprays it, which increases the area of evaporation (and the concentration of mercury vapor in the air). Some of the toxic metal deposited in the vacuum cleaner will be sprayed throughout the apartment when it is turned on again.
2.5. It is very difficult to collect mercury if the thermometer breaks on a sofa, carpet or other porous or fleecy surfaces. In this case, some decide to throw the item away or take it to the dry cleaner. But dry cleaning can fail, and so can throwing it away. bad decision. After all, someone will probably pick up the item and end up with mercury vapor poisoning as a result.
There are two options left:
2.6. OPTION 1. Hand over the item to a specialized organization for the collection of mercury-containing waste (as for the Ministry of Emergency Situations and many government and commercial organizations, this does not work well in practice).
OPTION 2. Do not try to hand over the item, but simply call professionals for demercurization (mercury removal). This is the simplest and most reasonable way (require presentation of an accreditation certificate).
2.7. Fabrics and clothing that may have mercury stuck to them should not be washed. in the washing machine. If possible, this thing is better throw away, rendering unusable, so that no one uses it, to their own misfortune.
2.8. Mercury should not be disposed of in sewers. It tends to settle in sewer pipes and slowly “succumb” to harmful fumes from there. By the way, it is incredibly difficult to remove toxic metal from the sewer.
2.9. Gloves, contaminated rags and other used items should not be washed or washed in the sink. It is better to pack them in a thick transparent plastic bag and also hand them over to an organization that collects mercury waste.
3. AFTER cleaning:
a) if you worked in shoes without shoe covers, then wash their soles with bleach (or potassium permanganate) and a soap-soda solution
b) rinse your mouth and throat weak pink solution of potassium permanganate (dilute in hot water for better dissolution);
c) brush your teeth thoroughly;
d) take 2-3 tablets activated carbon;
e) drink more diuretic liquid (tea, coffee, juice).
Anonymous
The news from Samara about a 9-year-old girl again plunged me into panic. My daughter goes to and from school alone, through the courtyards and through the park, there is no other way. I'm very scared for her. There is no way to see him off. She had already seen an exhibitionist in the park last year. But that's okay, little things. If only she was alive. I die every time she doesn't answer the call. One day I got a call from school that she was not in class and had left home in the morning, as usual. I think I turned gray while I was calling her. It turned out that she and her friend just decided to take a walk and went to their friend’s house.
Moms. How do you deal with your children's panic? Especially after such news. How does it ensure their safety? I don't have the opportunity to hire an escort. We live together with our daughter. She is 11 years old. She is my whole life, if something happens to her, my life is meaningless. But I can’t lock her at home and not let her out.
I told her about all sorts of dangers a hundred times. That you should stay away from single men. That the phone should always be charged and in your pocket at hand. What if something alarms you, you need to run away as fast as you can. What if something needs to be shouted loudly and attract the attention of all passers-by. That you need to turn to your aunties for help. What else am I missing?
238O-Lesya
Honestly, I wanted to use the right of anonymity, but....
In short, where do you get patience? How not to lose self-control when everything is brought out by the child (the eldest) with his behavior as well.
I’m tired of dressing and undressing a child in the kindergarten (from the kindergarten) every day, I’m tired of putting up with his eternal “I want it, period”, I’m tired of him being crazy and throwing everything at hand. There is not enough patience and time to calmly explain to a child why it is impossible, why this, why that. Well, for example, we’re going out, I gather the younger ones, prepare clothes for the older ones, and ask them to dress themselves. And he said, “I don’t want to go outside and I won’t go”... But my youngest and I have to sleep on the street and go for a walk and sleep, there’s no one to leave the older one with. And then everything gets stuck... There is no time for negotiations and persuasion.
I'm starting to go crazy, so that the child can be stubborn... To go to the garden, put it on for mom, when they come from the garden, mom, undress it, eat, "feed me mom." And the child, by the way, is soon 5 years old. Yes, I understand, jealousy and all that in connection with the presence of a younger one. But... How long will this last?? I’m already explosive, and when my brain starts to go haywire, that’s all for me... turn out the lights.
I read and talked to a psychologist. It seems like everyone speaks beautifully. But according to them, I have to look at the child who pushes me, throws chairs, etc. for the fact that I banned him from cartoons, and saying like a mantra that “son, I understand that you are upset” and waiting for it all to pass... There are a lot of such moments. When you're in the mood to be a golden child, but all you need is one prohibition (the same cartoon) - such stubbornness begins that... rrrrr you want to growl.
P.S. Honestly, comments like “he’s a spoiled child, that’s what you get” - bypass!! Angry, wound up in the morning, I can’t restrain myself, because behind the screen it’s clearly not visible how we raise a child.
Admins, move it to the right section, please, I can’t even figure out where better to write.
Moms, where do you get this patience and calmness? How not to put a child on the neck?
Anonymous
People, I'm panicking. The birth took place in August last year. In October of the same year, she had an intrauterine device installed. My first period came on September 2 this year. We went as usual. And now it’s October 11th and still no period. Does this happen or is it pregnancy through an IUD? I haven’t told my family anything yet; it will be a blow to them. There is no way to buy a test secretly from your family
159Photo: Katerina Pustynnikova
A Chelyabinsk woman broke a mercury thermometer. Fearing poisoning, the woman hastily collected the soft balls with a rag and began calling authorities to order the measurement of mercury vapor and the demercurization procedure (mercury removal). It was not so easy to reach specialists...
It was the first time I broke a thermometer,” said Chelyabinsk resident Alena Gorbunova. “I heard that mercury vapor is very dangerous, so I hurried to remove everything.” But I didn’t know that the rag had to be wetted with water before doing this, so it ended up smearing mercury all over the room. I have a small child. It became scary - what if we get poisoned? I called a bunch of phone numbers of the city rescue service and the Ministry of Emergency Situations. Of course, they told me how to collect this muck and advised me to wash the floor and ventilate the apartment. They said that nothing bad would happen because of one thermometer. But I didn’t risk the health of my child and decided to call the demercurization service.
The specialists were in no hurry to visit the young mother to measure mercury vapor.
I understand that the Ministry of Emergency Situations cannot go to every broken thermometer, but when the situation is not entirely normal, is this really not their responsibility? - the young mother was indignant. - In general, I was redirected to Rospotrebnadzor. On the tenth attempt I got through to the right specialist. I paid 870 rubles for the arrival of an employee who could measure mercury vapor and determine whether it was dangerous to be in the apartment. And suddenly it turned out that the specialists would not arrive immediately, but within a month!
The family did not wait, but simply moved to another apartment.
I understand that it is unlikely to be obtained acute poisoning from such an amount of mercury, but chronic - quite, - explained Alena Gorbunova. - We didn’t take risks.
There is nothing unusual in the fact that the employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the city rescue service did not rush to visit the young mother at the first call about a broken thermometer.
We specialize in larger chemical incidents. hazardous substances, - explained Mikhail Yurin, an employee of the press service of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the region. - The maximum we can in this case help, advise.
You can remove the consequences of a dropped thermometer yourself, but a dispatcher of the Chelyabinsk City Rescue Service is ready to advise you in detail on how to do this at any time of the day by calling 051 and (351) 263–16–16.
Under no circumstances should you touch mercury with your hands! - noted Sergei Kirpichnikov, deputy director of the MKU Chelyabinsk City Rescue Service. - Work only with rubber gloves. You can collect mercury balls with any convenient object that you don’t mind throwing away - a sheet of paper, a scoop or a spoon. And under no circumstances use a vacuum cleaner.
Then put the silver liquid into a jar of water and close the lid tightly. Wash the area where the mercury was spilled with a pink solution of potassium permanganate. If you don’t have it at home, then dilute bleach, dishwashing liquid or floor cleaner in water. Then take the mercury to the Shield enterprise.
The rags that were used to wash the floor can be thrown into an ordinary trash container - they are not dangerous,” continues Sergei Kirpichnikov. - For elderly people who are not able to do all this on their own, our specialists are ready to help. If you doubt whether you are doing everything right, call: we will tell you, we will help. The main thing is not to panic.
Photo: Dmitry Gladyshev (infographics)
Mercury can be disposed of in Chelyabinsk only in one place: on Mekhanicheskaya Street, 65, telephone: (351) 773–06–06. It is received from 8:15 to 15:00 from Monday to Thursday and from 8:15 to 13:45 on Friday.
If you bring it, ask the chemical laboratory, they will tell you where to go,” explained Vladimir, leading chemical engineer at the Center for Civil Defense and Population Protection of the Chelyabinsk Region (formerly FSUE “Shield”). - It is not necessary to bring documents with you. We accept free of charge from individuals, as well as municipal and state enterprises and institutions. A regular medical thermometer contains 1.5–2 grams of mercury. If you assemble them correctly, there will be no harm from a broken thermometer.
Really, broken home The thermometer is dangerous, especially for children - a lower concentration is enough for them to be poisoned than for adults,” commented Svetlana Luchinina, deputy chief physician of Rospotrebnadzor of the Chelyabinsk Region. - When mercury vapor evaporates, it enters the respiratory system. In children, even with a small volume, they can negatively affect the central nervous system(CNS). If there is a lot of mercury, then it is dangerous for adults. Small mercury balls can roll under the baseboard, get into the cracks under the linoleum, and gradually evaporate from there. But if you immediately collect the mercury in a jar of water and generously treat the floor with a solution of manganese, this will be enough to avoid poisoning. Potassium permanganate neutralizes mercury well. And in this case, there is no need to call the demercurization service.
