How to remove mercury from carpet and other floor coverings?

How to properly collect mercury if the thermometer breaks?

It is important to know how to remove mercury from a thermometer that has broken.
This liquid metal scatters across the floor in the form of tiny balls, which are difficult to collect, and fills the air with toxic fumes. During cleaning, you need to ensure the room is ventilated by opening the window and closing the door to other rooms. Before removing mercury, you need to put shoe covers on your feet, rubber gloves on your hands, and a gauze bandage on your face.

How to collect mercury from laminate flooring?

It is easiest to remove mercury from smooth surfaces - linoleum, laminate, wood. To clean, you need to prepare a jar of water or a solution of 2% potassium permanganate. The substance and fragments will be placed in it. How to remove mercury from laminate:

1. Collect the thermometer fragments and put them in a jar.
2. You can use regular pieces of paper to collect mercury. All visible liquid balls are driven onto them and poured into a container with potassium permanganate.
3. The remaining small particles are collected using tape, gluing it to the surface where the source of vapor is located. The used duct tape is placed in a jar.
4. Hard-to-reach places are cleaned using a medical bulb, sucking toxic balls into it and pouring the substance into a container of water.
5. The surface can be checked with a flashlight - the remaining mercury glows.
6. After cleaning, it is recommended to treat the area where the thermometer was broken with a solution of potassium permanganate for a week, and ventilate the room for at least 24 hours.

How to remove mercury from carpet?

It is more difficult to remove mercury from a carpet, because small balls are lost in its pile, especially if it is high. How to remove mercury from a thermometer from a carpet, carpet, rug:

1. To do this, it is best to use a syringe (rubber bulb) or a syringe. They can suck up droplets of the substance from the surface and send them to a jar of potassium permanganate.
2. Sticky tape will also help to collect the balls.
3. After this, the product is taken outside, lightly beaten over a film, from which droplets of the substance are then collected and placed in a container with water. After cleaning, the cellophane is thrown into a bag with mercury-containing waste.
4. The carpet is sprayed with a solution of potassium permanganate or bleach. After such cleaning, stains may remain on the material or the pile may be damaged. A more gentle solution: 1 tbsp. l. baking soda, 2 tbsp. l. grated laundry soap per liter of heated water.

How to remove mercury from a sink?

If the thermometer breaks in the sink, then the liquid metal cannot be washed down the drain - its particles will remain on the walls of the drain pipes and will evaporate. How to properly remove mercury from a sink:

1. To solve the problem, you need to close the drain hole and mechanically collect large liquid balls, pour them into a container with water. A sheet of paper and a brush will help with this.
2. Small drops of mercury can be removed using a well-soaped sponge, wiping the surface from the edges to the center. The rag with the adhering substance is placed in a glass jar with a lid.
3. Chemically treat the sink with the following solutions:

• for 1 liter of manganese water 1 tbsp. l. vinegar and 2 tbsp. l. iodine or chlorine-containing agent (white);
• Apply the solution to the sink, let it dry, and repeat the treatment several times.

How to remove mercury from the toilet?

It is very inconvenient to remove mercury from the toilet. Due to inexperience, many owners try to wash off the droplets, but they often do not overcome the “knee” of the plumbing fixture, remain at the bottom and continue to harm the human body. Removing the substance from sewer pipes is also incredibly difficult. How to collect mercury from a toilet:

1. It is necessary to shut off the flow of new water into the toilet, use an enema with a nozzle to remove all the liquid from the “knee”, suck up the balls and pour everything into a jar of water.
2. Small particles of mercury can be removed with a soapy sponge.
3. The inside of the toilet must be treated several times with a manganese solution or bleach.

Methods for detecting mercury vapor in the body

Timely diagnosis of poisoning by toxic fumes is possible only in a medical institution.

There are several examination methods to determine the presence of mercury in the body:

• blood and urine tests. It is recommended to take it after 2 weeks. At an earlier stage, the analysis may not show the presence of a toxic substance and this will lead to a false diagnosis;
• diagnostics using medical equipment: RA-915+, Mercury devices, Tekran analyzer;
• introduction of a special solution into the body. Once in the body, it shows the presence of mercury or its compounds with 95% accuracy.

Mercury compounds entering the body slow down the growth of hair and nails in humans. This is one of the additional factors that help a specialist establish a diagnosis of mercury vapor intoxication.

What to do with mercury?

We are done with the preliminary actions. But how to collect mercury from a carpet? Many people recommend using an ordinary vacuum cleaner for this. This is extremely dangerous, since during its operation the engine heats up, which only accelerates the process of mercury evaporation. In addition, air passes through the motor, and mercury settles on it, forming a microscopic film. After this, the equipment is prohibited from being used, and the Ministry of Emergency Situations is responsible for its disposal. In some cases, it is allowed to use mobile car vacuum cleaners, since they use a weak motor in terms of power, which heats up only to 50-60°C within 2-3 minutes. No more vacuuming is required. You cannot disassemble the vacuum cleaner after this. It is better to take it outside, away from people, and recycle it in the future.

How to collect mercury from a broken thermometer? There is no need to try to do this with a piece of paper, much less a broom. A wet newspaper or napkin soaked in sunflower or olive oil is best. Mercury beads adhere to such surfaces, after which they are packaged in sealed bags (again for the Ministry of Emergency Situations). Copper wire, adhesive plaster, and tape have the same property. Do not “comb” the stain out of the carpet or use a small bristle brush to pick it up. This will only lead to larger drops of metal breaking into small ones, which are much more difficult to collect. Mercury is heavier than air and other materials (the density is 13 times higher than water), so it will simply settle deeper.

To remove mercury from a carpet with pile, the rug must be carefully folded into a large sealed bag (a trash bag will do), then taken outside and hung on a crossbar. You need to lay a film under it to prevent the rolling mercury from getting into the ground. The carpet itself is then knocked out with very light blows for 30-40 minutes. By the way, the one who will collect mercury and clean the room must take a break every 20 minutes and leave the premises. He also needs to drink as much fluid as possible (mercury is excreted from the body through the kidneys).

By the way, all things that got metal will have to be ventilated for 3 months after the incident, and this should not be done, for example, on a balcony or yard. You can’t burn these things either - the mercury will simply evaporate and remain in the air.

There are those who claim that you can remove mercury from the floor with chlorinated iron. This substance actually acts as a magnet, but is also toxic. But copper sulfate dissolves mercury, thereby complicating cleaning. Therefore, it is better not to use these components for cleaning.

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The place where the balls were must be treated with any absorbent as soon as possible. Even crushed activated carbon is suitable for this purpose. After 10-15 minutes, it is placed in a container of water (adhesive tape or an enema will help here again), closed tightly and in the future handed over to those services that deal with the disposal of such substances.

Where to put the collected mercury?

Remains of the thermometer and collected mercury should not be thrown into the garbage disposal. They must be submitted to the relevant service. It is also not worth making independent attempts to dispose of it (burying it in the ground or pouring it into the river). Only specialists have the right to deal with such matters.

If at least 2 grams of mercury evaporate, it will pollute 6 thousand cubic meters of air. When released into open spaces, mercury vapor spreads at maximum speed. Throwing mercury waste into the trash can endanger animals and people without them even realizing it.

In large cities, mercury waste is handed over to collection points of the SES and the Ministry of Emergency Situations. But in small towns and villages, of course, there are no such services. Local residents have to travel a long way or cope on their own.

Note! Not long ago, an interactive map appeared, which marks places where you can take old thermometers and other items hazardous to the environment. The number of such points is constantly growing.

Have you thrown mercury into the trash?

Not really

Thermometer broke - what to do

If you drop a mercury thermometer and it bursts, it is important to carry out demercurization - removal and disposal of droplets of mercury wherever it leaked. First of all, call the Ministry of Emergency Situations

In the meantime, while the specialists are on their way to you, hurry to remove the toxic mercury balls yourself:

• Get everyone out of the room where the mercury leaked.
• Close the door well in a room contaminated with mercury and open all windows for ventilation.
• Put on a respirator or gauze bandage, rubber gloves, and make shoe covers from plastic bags.
• Place the thermometer fragments with liquid metal residues inside in a glass jar filled to the middle with water and close the lid tightly.
• Seal all the tools that you used to touch the toxic mercury balls during cleaning in another container.
• During the liquidation of a mercury accident, take breaks every 15 minutes, go out into the air, and drink plenty of cold water.
• For 2-3 weeks, ventilate the room where the mercury thermometer was broken daily.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - If If your thermometer has broken, immediately contact the Mercury Elimination Service: Help - 24 hours. No weekends or holidays. Hotline: +7 (499) 110-81-53 Using specialized equipment included in the State Register of Measuring Instruments, certified specialists will measure the concentration of mercury vapor in the air and identify sources of mercury

Detected sources of pollution are eliminated during special demercurization measures. Warning: health hazard! Mercury vapor is especially dangerous for children and pregnant women! And that’s why it’s so important to quickly and correctly eliminate the consequences of a broken thermometer. We provide guarantees for all work: Free return visit and measurement of mercury vapor within 7 days! Accredited laboratory. Certificate No. ROSS RU.0001.21EN01 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - — — — — —

How to take care of your own health after demercurization

Mercury vapor poisoning is very dangerous to health, especially for children and pregnant women. Negative consequences occur with a cumulative effect, and the removal of mercury from the body is very difficult. Vapors affect the immune and nervous systems. During pregnancy, the child may develop cerebral palsy and underdevelopment of the brain. Children may develop autism.

Symptoms of poisoning are nausea, dizziness, increased fatigue, hyperirritability, bleeding gums and a number of other signs.

All work to independently eliminate the consequences of an emergency mercury spill in an apartment must be carried out wearing rubber gloves, a gauze bandage, and shoe covers. Take breaks and go out into fresh air periodically.

After cleaning up mercury, you should rinse your mouth with a soda solution.

So, instructions for action if you break a mercury thermometer at home.

No panic.

Mercury, although a harmful and dangerous element, is not worth talking about a disaster if the thermometer is broken. There are many cases like this in history. But I have not met a single person when a broken thermometer led to mercury poisoning or something similar. There are a lot of horror stories on the Internet, but these are just attempts to make mountains out of molehills, nothing more. And there is a minimum of real danger. Of course, if you do not drink it or ingest it in another way. Therefore, there is no reason for hysteria.

Where is the mercury?

Having broken the thermometer, try to understand where the fragments and contents scattered. Having understood this, the main thing is not to step on this place, so as not to spread drops of mercury throughout the house.

There should be no witnesses!

We calm down and, turning on the internal airborne specialist, gently but persistently and quickly remove all household members from the area where there may be remnants of the thermometer. The same applies to pets

More air!

Mercury is a metal that evaporates well when it gets into the air (calmly! No one will die!), therefore, as soon as everyone in the household has been gently kicked out into other rooms, you need to ventilate until the end of cleaning by opening the windows and vents.

So, you know where the thermometer was broken and where the mercury got from it. Mercury, when it hits any surface, has the ability to scatter in small drops much further than where you noted. Therefore, the area that you will process should be 1.5 - 2 times larger than the one you initially outlined.

The devil is not as scary as he is painted.

We have a certain area with hundreds of small drops of mercury on it. Don't panic! Collecting them is much easier than it seems! The main thing is not to use a broom or rags that you use at home! Everything is disposable and you don’t mind throwing it away!

Our task is to quickly, simply and efficiently collect hundreds of microdroplets of mercury. To do this we need:

1. Disposable rubber gloves. (buy at a pharmacy, or find it at your place; in extreme cases, use household ones (then throw away).

2. Ordinary wide tape. If not, ask your neighbors, or buy it at a stationery store.

3. Bag for collecting mercury and tape.

Get to work!

We take the tape and cut off a small piece (30-50 cm) from it.

After this, with the sticky side, wearing gloves, we apply it to the floor or surface where the thermometer broke. Press (lightly ironing with your hand so that the tape sticks and collects the drops).

Peel off your strip.

Voila! If you look closely, there will be fragments of a thermometer and small shiny particles on it. These are the drops of mercury that scattered when the thermometer was broken.

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Now, roll up your used piece and place it in the recycling bag you prepared ahead of time.

Unwind a piece of new tape again and repeat the procedure.

So, by gluing the entire surface where mercury could get in, you will collect it all with tape. The main thing is not to allow gaps in the surface gluing. Many drops of mercury are so small that they may not be noticed. And the tape will find them and stick them.

When the work is finished and you have a full package of used tape with mercury, you need to call the Ministry of Emergency Situations and ask where to bring this tape with the remaining mercury? They will tell you.

Do not throw the bag in the trash or store it at home! Mercury is still dangerous and if it ends up in a landfill, it can cause harm to people and animals! Therefore, give it to specialists as soon as possible.

That's all! Live long! And no panic)

Preparation

The best way to protect residents and get rid of a broken thermometer is to call professionals who will demercurize the room. Such organizations do not work for free, and the price for services is rather high. There, no one tries to preserve other people's property; the carpet is rolled up and sent for disposal.

But if the carpet is expensive or dear to memory, it would be a pity to throw it away, then what should you do? There is an exit. The main thing is to adhere to the sequence of all actions performed in order to protect your family from danger. The faster the work of collecting mercury is completed, the less harm it will cause.

Before cleaning, put on a gauze bandage to cover your nose and mouth. Pre-moisten it in a soda solution or water. This will protect your airways from damage.

You cannot stay in the room where the thermometer has broken for more than 15 minutes. Go outside periodically to get some fresh air.

Body protection products

How to collect mercury from the floor if the thermometer breaks. Cleaning steps

Having taken the first steps, protecting yourself from direct contact with mercury and preparing everything you need, you can proceed to the most important question: how to collect mercury from the floor from a thermometer correctly so that nothing remains. The whole process is divided into three stages:

1. Demercurization - collection of all metal balls.
2. Chemical demercurization – cleaning the premises with disinfectants.
3. Contact the Ministry of Emergency Situations.

Demercurization:

1. Use a lamp or flashlight to illuminate the scene. Inspect all surfaces thoroughly.

1. Start collecting with large balls. This way you will avoid their subsequent division into smaller elements. To do this, bend a sheet of thick paper into the shape of a scoop and use a knitting needle or copper plate to collect mercury droplets into it.
2. Carefully move the mercury balls located close to each other into one pile so that they are reunited.
3. Collect small droplets using adhesive tape or adhesive tape.
4. You can remove mercury from the thermometer from hard-to-reach places (cracks on the floor and furniture) using a cotton swab soaked in a solution of potassium permanganate. A syringe with a thick needle can also be useful in this case.
5. A syringe will help collect mercury from the carpet if the thermometer breaks. After this, you should take the carpet out into the fresh air so that all remaining microparticles are completely removed.
6. Place all the particles that you managed to collect into a jar of water. All materials used during cleaning are collected there: cotton wool, tape, adhesive tape, cotton swabs. After removing all remnants of the accident, the jar must be tightly closed.

1. Place all equipment and tools in a bag and tie it tightly. The package can be thrown in the trash.

Chemical demercurization

For further processing, a disinfectant solution should be prepared. You can use one of the following recipes.

Solution No. 1:

1. Mix a few crystals of potassium permanganate with water. The liquid should have a dark brown color.
2. Add salt and vinegar to the solution according to the proportion: 1 tablespoon per 1 liter of brown liquid.
3. Add a pinch of citric acid and mix the solution thoroughly until all ingredients are completely dissolved.

Solution No. 2:

1. Dilute 1 liter of bleach in 5 liters of water.
2. You can also use any chlorine-containing bleach and mix it with water in a ratio of 100 ml to 800 ml, respectively.

Solution No. 3:

1. Dissolve 40 g of soap and 50 g of soda in 1 liter of water.
2. Stir the ingredients thoroughly until each is completely dissolved.

How to remove mercury from the floor if the thermometer breaks? We disinfect the room:

1. Wear rubber gloves.
2. Treat all surfaces in the room with a soft cloth soaked in the prepared solution.

1. After 8 hours, wipe all treated surfaces with a cloth dampened in clean water.

1. After treatment, the room must be ventilated for at least 2-3 hours.
2. Throughout the week after the incident, the apartment must be wet cleaned daily.

Actions after removing the remains of a broken thermometer

As soon as you have finished cleaning the apartment, you should take care of the collected remains:

1. Call 101 and find out where you can hand over a jar of mercury drops to an emergency worker.
2. If you still have doubts about the quality of cleaning, call the employees of the sanitary and epidemiological station. Using a special device, they will be able to measure the concentration of vapors in the air of the apartment.
3. Take care of your own health, because during cleaning, even in equipment, there is a chance of getting poisoned. For this:
   Rinse your mouth thoroughly with a weak solution of potassium permanganate.
4. Brush your teeth.
5. Take a few tablets of activated carbon.
6. For the next 24 hours, drink as much liquid as possible: tea, juice, compote, water, coffee.

Knowing how to collect mercury if a thermometer breaks, you are to some extent protected from the disastrous consequences of poisoning with harmful toxins. But only to some extent. The best option would be to completely abandon unsafe items for measuring body temperature and use alternative devices. It is impossible to foresee situations with a broken thermometer, as well as the consequences of such a nuisance. Secure your home, especially if there are children in it.

But we don’t say goodbye to you here, come back again!

Recommendations

Before collecting mercury from a thermometer from a floor where there are cracks, you need to prepare a knitting needle wrapped in damp cotton wool. However, you can push the mercury out with a brush. In order to collect the substance correctly and without consequences for the body, it is necessary to take into account the following recommendations:

• when the mercury is removed, it is advisable to call a special service, which will send its employees to check the level of concentration of harmful vapors in the room;
• during cleaning you need to drink a lot of water;
• If some of the contents from a broken thermometer get on the skin, it should be immediately treated with a soapy solution and rinsed under running water.

Why is mercury dangerous?

A standard mercury thermometer contains about 5 g of mercury. This substance is especially dangerous, but its vapors cause the greatest harm. If a thermometer breaks in a room with a volume of 50 cubic meters. m., the concentration of mercury can reach 100 mg per cubic meter. It goes without saying that long-term stay in such a room can cause mercury poisoning.

Mercury is quickly deposited in tissues and nerve cells. If all sources of contamination are not eliminated immediately, your health will be in serious danger. Also, this substance can easily break into small pieces and get into hard-to-reach places. It is possible to completely disinfect a room only with the help of specialists and the demercurization procedure.

Mercury poses a particular danger to children, pregnant women and the elderly: their bodies will not be able to resist toxic substances, so they are at particular risk.

Substance danger

Mercury is a liquid metal. Even at room temperature (+18°) it gradually evaporates. The danger is that the substance rolled on the surface has no smell and is difficult to find. It will also not be possible to determine the location based on other signs.

One thermometer leaks 4 grams of mercury. This is enough to pollute 5500 cubic meters. m. air.

Mercury droplets on the carpet
Another problem is that mercury spills into small droplets that roll into cracks or stick to the sole of a slipper and spread throughout the apartment. This metal is harmful to the health of people living in this room. With prolonged interaction, this accumulates in the internal organs of a person, leading to intoxication. These problems can be avoided by correctly collecting the mercury thermometer from the surface of the carpet.

Such a familiar thermometer

Everyone has been familiar with glass thermometers with a thin vacuum flask filled with mercury - a capillary, and a division scale since childhood. This is the most familiar and necessary medical device in any family. Yes, now you can buy electronic thermometers of various shapes - from those designed for infants in the form of a pacifier to non-contact ones. But still, the vast majority of people consider mercury thermometers to be the most accurate and practical. But few people think about the danger lurking in the thermometer.

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Why, it would seem, was it necessary to invent a mercury thermometer if the substance that helps measure body temperature is very dangerous? But it was mercury that became the liquid that satisfies the needs of accurate temperature measurement, expanding evenly as it increases, rising up the capillary of the thermometer. The mercury thermometer was invented in the 18th century as an improved version of the alcohol thermometer. In our country, the Celsius scale is used to measure temperature; in Western countries and America, temperature is measured in Fahrenheit. Using a mercury thermometer at home, few people think about the answer to the question “what neutralizes mercury” if the thermometer suddenly breaks.

Urgent measures

The action of cleaning a room from liquid metal - mercury - is called demercurization. There are mechanical and chemical ways to remove this dangerous substance. However, there are a few important steps you need to take first. If a thermometer breaks, what immediate measures should be taken is a question the answer to which should be known in advance. In this situation, you need to act in this order:

1. Remove people and animals from the premises, close doors and open windows. However, you need to make sure that there is no draft, due to which mercury balls can roll across the entire floor, breaking into small pieces.
2. Wear protective equipment: a respirator or a gauze bandage soaked in a soda solution, latex gloves and shoe covers (instead, you can use regular plastic bags that are secured to your feet with tape).
3. Place the broken thermometer in any glass container (for example, a jar) filled with water and close it tightly with a lid. During this stage, the main thing is to go outside every 10-15 minutes.
4. Hand over waste to the Ministry of Emergency Situations. You cannot throw parts of the thermometer down the toilet or into a landfill.
5. Ventilate the room daily for three weeks.

Before collecting mercury from the thermometer from the floor, it is advisable to cover furniture and plants with film or garbage bags. If the substance manages to spread widely throughout the room and urgent measures are not taken, it means that you will have to call the employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, who will carry out the demercurization procedure, or solve this problem yourself.

What not to do

1. Do not sweep mercury with a broom. Hard rods will only grind drops of mercury into fine dust and spread throughout the room.
2. 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.
3. Do not throw the thermometer down the garbage disposal. Mercury will pollute the air throughout the house.
4. 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.
5. Clothing that has been exposed to mercury should be thrown away. When washing, small metal particles will settle in the washing machine.
6. There is no need to rinse rags and other available materials in the sink. We have already talked about sewer pipes. Just collect everything in a thick plastic bag and tie it tightly. You can't take it to the trash.

What should you not do?

Mercury is a metal that poses a health hazard. Moreover, its couples pose a threat. If it gets on the carpet, then it is strictly forbidden to take the following actions :

1. Try to collect metal with a vacuum cleaner.
   It will get inside the device and settle on all its parts. Each time you turn it on, the equipment will be a source of toxic fumes. Therefore, you will have to get rid of such a vacuum cleaner.
2. Sweep mercury from the carpet using a broom.
   Its hard rods will break large balls into small fractions. It will be difficult to collect them. Air currents and sweeping movements can spread metal throughout the room. In secluded places it can lie for years and poison the air with toxic fumes.
3. Clean the carpet with a brush. It will break large drops into small components. They will penetrate into the deep structures of the carpet. It will be impossible to clean them. You will have to get rid of the floor covering.
4. You cannot open windows and doors in a room at the same time. This will lead to the formation of a draft and toxic fumes will spread throughout the apartment faster.

Do not step on carpet contaminated with mercury. The metal, along with house shoes, will spread throughout the living space. In addition, you can get injured by fragments of the thermometer.

How to collect mercury from a broken thermometer?

The first thing victims ask is how to take mercury if the thermometer breaks. This can be done in several ways, depending on the place where it was broken.

How to collect mercury from the floor from a thermometer

When cleaning this dangerous substance, it is important to forget about the usual broom or rag. Moreover, kitchen sponges are not suitable

The collected metal balls must be placed in a previously prepared glass container with water. The toilet and trash can are not the place for such waste. As soon as the balls fall into the jar, it must be closed very tightly.

There are several options for how to collect metal from the floor. These include:

1. It is possible to use a simple syringe into which the balls are drawn. Afterwards they must be released into the prepared jar. This type of tackle is perfect for removing metal from crevices and from under baseboards. After performing such manipulations, the syringe must be disposed of. Under no circumstances should it be reused.
2. It is possible to soak paper napkins in oil. The metal balls will stick perfectly to the towel. If there are no such napkins, then you can use newspaper soaked in liquid or cotton balls.
3. Toxic metal balls stick well to tape or adhesive tape.

After all the mercury has been collected, the room must be thoroughly cleaned. To do this, use bleach and clean the floor several times with disinfectants. To remove the balls, use a rag that you don’t mind and can throw away. The room where the incident occurred must be left for a week with the windows open. The floor should be disinfected on an ongoing basis using a soda solution. Now everyone knows, if a thermometer in an apartment breaks, how much mercury evaporates.

At this time, a person needs to bathe thoroughly. Rinse your mouth with soda solution from time to time. It is recommended to take several tablets of activated carbon.

How to collect mercury from a carpet

Removing metal from a carpet involves a number of actions that are aimed at removing toxic poison from the carpet surface. The collection device is selected separately for each situation. But usually it is no different from the device that is chosen to collect poison from the floor. You can resort to such handy means as cotton pads, tape, adhesive tape or adhesive paper. You just need to go over the entire carpet surface with the prepared tool. Then immediately throw the tape or paper into the prepared glass jar.

Things are much more complicated if the carpet has an elongated pile. Poisonous balls can get stuck and retained inside it. First you need to remove all the balls, carefully inspecting the room. Afterwards, the floor covering must be processed several times. Use a soda or soap solution for the first time. The second time, detergents will do.

It is important to remember that for the safety of the work being carried out, cleaning is carried out only with gloves. In some cases, it is recommended to take a breathing mask or gas mask

From the cracks

The most difficult task, but at the same time doable, is collecting mercury from liquors. There are several options for resolving the problem:

In the first case, you can use a gypsy needle or a long knitting needle. You should wrap a cotton wool soaked in liquid on it. In the second case, pour sand into the crack and sweep it away along with the remains of the hazardous metal. Some are inclined to collect metal using a magnet. This is a completely doable job. Since mercury is a liquid metal, it is easily magnetic

During the session, it is important to wear thick rubber gloves. After manipulation, remove them in such a way that the magnet and the poison remain inside the glove.

Afterwards the final cleaning of the room is carried out. In the place where the device was broken, wipe with a product that will eliminate all mercury vapor. A very effective solution is ferric chloride solution. Make a 20% aqueous solution and wash the surface.

Video: the dangers of mercury for humans

What to do if a mercury thermometer breaks? How to avoid unpleasant consequences? Read about it below.

If you handle a mercury thermometer carefully and store it out of the reach of children and protected from direct sunlight, then this device does not pose any danger. Modern thermometers are sold in special cases that will soften the blow even if dropped.

However, it should be remembered that if the integrity of the thermometer is damaged, there is a health hazard. It contains liquid heavy metal - mercury, the fumes of which are highly toxic. This substance belongs to the first class of extremely dangerous substances. That is why in many countries the production of mercury thermometers is completely banned. Just 1-2 grams of the substance can cause serious mercury poisoning.

How dangerous is mercury: consequences for the body

If the thermometer does break, the moving mercury balls quickly get clogged into small cracks and roll into corners, where it is very difficult to get them out. The mercury that is not immediately collected begins to evaporate. The evaporation process occurs at a temperature of 18 degrees Celsius. The poison enters the human body usually through the respiratory tract, causing poisoning.

Many will say that if the thermometer were so dangerous, it would be completely excluded from sale. Of course, acute poisoning may not occur, but prolonged inhalation of toxic vapors can lead to unpleasant consequences.

There may be:

• deviations from the nervous system (CNS);
• kidney and liver problems;
• thyroid diseases;
• breathing problems, pneumonia;
• damage to the fetus during pregnancy.

Symptoms of mercury poisoning

If a thermometer breaks in an apartment, you must urgently take care to remove all pieces of glass and particles of mercury. Contact with mercury itself is practically not dangerous, but if you inhale mercury vapor, you can cause great harm to your body. Depending on the concentration of the substance in the air, unpleasant symptoms may appear that should alert you.

These include:

• severe fatigue under standard loads;
• drowsiness;
• lethargy;
• dizziness or headaches;
• tremors in the hands (shaking);
• increased sweating;
• low blood pressure;
• apathy, depressive states;
• insomnia.

If several of the above symptoms appear, you should immediately consult a doctor, as well as special services that will use special devices to measure the concentration of vapors of a hazardous substance in your home. How to collect mercury from a broken thermometer? What items do you need to prepare and how can you protect yourself during this process? These questions are asked by everyone who has broken a thermometer at least once. Find out how to properly remove a dangerous substance below.

First aid for mercury poisoning

If you break a thermometer and suspect that poisoning has occurred with a toxic substance, you must immediately contact a medical facility. Treatment of intoxication caused by mercury vapor is carried out only in a hospital setting, so you should call an ambulance.

Before the ambulance arrives, you can slightly alleviate the condition of the poisoned person.

If he is conscious, you should act like this:

1. Ensure rest, complete bed rest.
2. Provide maximum access to fresh air.
3. Perform gastric lavage.
4. Induce vomiting.
5. Take activated carbon at the rate of 1 tablet per 10 kg of weight;
6. Provide plenty of fluids.

If the poisoned person is unconscious, he must be laid on his side and fresh air must be allowed into the room. The condition of the patient's tongue should be monitored to avoid retraction.