Mercury in the toilet, what to do? The thermometer broke in the sink

Share on social media networks:

The question of how to flush mercury in the toilet is quite popular on the Internet. And the matter is truly serious and requires detailed consideration. Mercury thermometers are slowly but surely being replaced from everyday use by electronic ones, but progress has not yet reached all residents of our country. Sometimes it’s a pity to throw away an old thermometer, since it’s still working, and older people don’t trust newfangled devices or simply don’t want to pay more for a modern device. As long as this relic of the past is still found in our apartments, the topic of broken mercury thermometers will be relevant.

What to do if mercury gets into the toilet?

As a rule, this problem is associated with a broken mercury thermometer. Not only playful children can break such a thermometer. Quite often, adults break them, accidentally dropping them on the floor or shaking off the mercury column to a minimum. Usually mercury ends up on the floor of the room, but sometimes it ends up in the toilet.

It is difficult to imagine a situation where a person somehow managed to measure his temperature in such a way that the thermometer fell into the toilet. How does the metal get there? Most often, children, and sometimes adults, having broken the device, in panic, without thinking, out of ignorance and other reasons, try to flush “evidence from the crime scene” down the toilet. What to do if, for some reason, mercury ends up in the toilet?

The effect of mercury on the human body

If you have already tried to wash off the mercury, you are probably convinced that it remains at the bottom. The mercury balls are not so light that they can go away with the flow of water.

First of all, victims are interested in why such an amount of mercury is dangerous for them:

Mercury itself, as is known, is not dangerous, but its vapors can cause unpleasant consequences in the form of nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, dizziness, and a feeling of heaviness.
Also, contact with these toxic vapors can cause feelings of anxiety and depression.
With prolonged exposure, more tragic consequences are possible in the form of disruption of the nervous system or Alzheimer's disease.

Important! Let's be honest: the amount of mercury that leaked from one thermometer does not pose a particular danger to an adult healthy person, but it is quite dangerous for children, the elderly or people with poor health. So, be that as it may, you need to get rid of the remaining mercury.

How to remove mercury from the toilet at home?

The most sensible advice, of course, is to contact the Ministry of Emergency Situations or an environmental service for mercury disposal, if there is one in your locality. The specialists there know exactly how and what to do in your situation, although, of course, you will not be praised for throwing mercury into the toilet. Specialists have all the tools and skills for mechanical or chemical demercurization.

If for some reason you do not want to contact the services of special services, then you should do the following:

First of all, you need to get the visible mercury balls. First, put rubber gloves and a respirator on your hands; although the mercury is under water, you can inhale its vapors.

Important! Don't try to do this with your hands or a brush. This will only lead to the fact that the balls will break up into smaller fragments, which will still stubbornly not be washed off, and will be much more difficult to collect.

You can try to collect mercury with a large rubber bulb, which you can easily buy at a pharmacy, or with a syringe without a needle. Just try to suck up the ball, and then place it in a jar of water that is sealed tightly.
After all visible particles have been collected, you can pour a strong solution of potassium permanganate or a soap-soda solution into the toilet. The latter is easy to prepare: you need to thoroughly dissolve 40 g of laundry soap shavings and 50 g of soda ash in 1 liter of water.
How to flush mercury from the toilet? In order for the remaining mercury to go down the drain, you need to throw toilet paper or sawdust for cat litter into the toilet. Try repeating the procedure several times.

Important! Over time, the dangerous substance will go down the drain, but, frankly, there is nothing good about it. Mercury is heavier than water (sinks easily) and can settle in the nearest knee, leaving you or your neighbors still exposed to mercury vapor, only in small quantities. And you will harm the environment. Needless to say, throwing mercury down the toilet is not a good idea.

After all procedures, you need to thoroughly ventilate the room, ideally for 24 hours. It is advisable to remove animals, children, and people with poor health from the apartment for at least a day.

Important! To prevent poisoning, doctors recommend taking 3-4 tablets of activated carbon.

Collected mercury must be taken away from the house. It would be more correct to call the sanitary and epidemiological station or the Ministry of Emergency Situations and ask where exactly to dispose of it.

Important! At any rate, don't throw mercury down your home's trash pit. It's better to find a trash container on the street. You can take out and bury the collected metal in some vacant lot away from houses.

It is also recommended that after all procedures, call specialists to your home, who will measure the level of mercury vapor with a special device.

How to wash the floor after a thermometer breaks?

Every day it is necessary to wash the floor and surfaces that have come into contact with mercury with a soap-soda solution or water with the addition of a chlorine-containing disinfectant.

Interesting materials:

How to change the font in Windows 10? How to password protect Windows 10? How to burn a CD in Windows 7? How to write data to disk in Windows 7? How to record Windows 10 computer screen? How to burn files to a Windows 7 disk? How to burn ISO to disc in Windows 10? How to burn an ISO image to disk in Windows 10? How to burn an iso image of Windows 10 to a USB flash drive? How to burn an mp3 disc to a machine on Windows 7?

What can't you do?

Next we will talk about some tips that are quite often found on forums when discussing the topic of how to flush mercury in the toilet:

If we perceive the recommendation to concrete the toilet and leave the city as a joke, then some may perceive pouring Coca-Cola into the toilet for 2 weeks as a really working remedy. Such actions will not bring any results in the fight against settled metal.
There are people who advise using ferric chloride. In reality, it is toxic, and, fortunately, it is not sold on every corner. The same applies to 100% nitric acid.
You should also not believe that mercury balls will stick in friendly rows to a magnet or copper wire as soon as you lower it into the toilet.

Important! If you have plumbing skills, you can use the recommendation to disconnect the toilet and remove the mercury from it, but this, as they say, is not suitable for everyone.

Video material

In order to avoid a repetition of such a situation, replace mercury thermometers with electronic ones, especially if you have children and you don’t want to worry about how to flush mercury down the toilet. In any case, you should not panic, because it is in this state that you will make more mistakes than correct actions. Think soberly and clearly, concentrate on the task at hand and figure out how to properly and quickly dispose of harmful metal. The tips from this article will help you navigate this serious matter.

Actions in case of a broken mercury thermometer

If you break a mercury thermometer indoors, do not flush the gray matter down the toilet. You can get rid of harmful metal faster if you don’t panic and listen to the following recommendations:

Do not use a vacuum cleaner to collect mercury beads. It will absorb the balls, and on the other side we will receive a stream of air “enriched” with poisonous mercury vapor. Evaporation will increase as the mercury inside the vacuum cleaner heats up.
To collect mercury balls, you cannot use a broom, broom, mop, or rag, since, thanks to your manipulations, they will disintegrate into small fragments, scatter throughout the room, and seeing and collecting them will be even more problematic.
Be sure to protect your hands and respiratory system. Isolate the room itself.
Remove animals, children and people in poor health from the contaminated premises.
You need to collect mercury carefully: carefully sweep individual particles onto a piece of paper with a soft brush or a scraper with a rubber tip. Collect small balls using tape or wet newspaper.
If mercury gets on the carpet, it is better to cut out a piece of the carpet and throw it away.

Important! When collecting mercury in the room, windows should be closed, fans, air conditioners, and heaters should be turned off.

Inspect the surface and all the cracks around it with a flashlight. The mercury will glow. From hard-to-reach places, balls can be collected with a medical bulb or a syringe without a needle.

Important! All clothing that may have gotten mercury on it, the respirator, and gloves must be thrown away; clothing should not be washed in a washing machine.

After all manipulations, it is necessary to ventilate the room for 24 hours.

Important! Liquid metal is a substance of the first hazard class. The maximum permissible concentration is 300 ng/cubic meter.

Hello everyone, maybe there are specialists here in such situations, they broke the thermometer, collected the mercury and, as expected, threw it into the toilet, naturally it remained there, please advise what to do.

How can you remove mercury?

Before you remove the mercury from the thermometer from the floor, you need to know what can be used in this case and what cannot be used. The following will be useful for cleaning: plastic trash bags, sheets of paper or cardboard, rubber spatulas, brushes, enema, tape. How to remove large mercury:

visible particles are driven onto a sheet of paper with a scraper, brush, or cardboard;
It is convenient to collect droplets with a pipette or rubber bulb.

How to remove mercury – its small drops:

Unnoticeable particles are removed with tape - the sticky part of the tape must be pressed against the surface and slowly lifted, discarded.
Use shaving cream and a brush; the foam helps catch small balls. It covers the place where the thermometer broke, then the product is carefully scraped off.
A crumb of bread or dough will come in handy. A small piece should be pressed to the area where small drops accumulate and thrown into a jar of water.
Items used for cleaning are packed in plastic bags.

Is it possible to collect mercury with a magnet?

Many people advise collecting mercury with a magnet. However, this method will not work to get rid of toxic balls. Although the substance belongs to liquid metals, it is diamagnetic; when a magnet approaches, droplets will be repelled from it, so with the help of this improvised means you can only unsuccessfully drive mercury balls across the floor.

How to remove mercury with a vacuum cleaner?

Before you remove mercury from the floor with a vacuum cleaner, it is important to know that doing this is strictly prohibited. The substance will pass into the engine of the equipment, forming a toxic film on its parts. Then, when you turn on the vacuum cleaner, it will begin to heat up, mercury microdroplets under the influence of hot air will be dispersed throughout the apartment. This promotes strong evaporation of the substance. If the vacuum cleaner was used in this case, it must be disposed of immediately.

What to do with collected mercury?

Liquid mercury is a very toxic substance and should not be thrown into the garbage chute, toilet, or on the street. You should know that one broken thermometer contaminates 10 m2 of soil, therefore, when the task of how to quickly collect mercury was successfully resolved, and the substance was collected in a special container, and auxiliary items in garbage bags, all this must be securely closed and handed over to proper place. There, toxic metal is disposed of according to all rules.

You can find out the address of the collection point for mercury-containing waste by calling the Ministry of Emergency Situations number in any city. You can also take the closed jar and package to the nearest fire rescue department of the Ministry of Emergency Situations. After completing all the work, it is advisable to invite specialists from a chemical-radiometric laboratory to your home to check the air environment for the presence of mercury pollution.

"Eco Expert" - guaranteed high-quality demercurization of even the most inaccessible places

Our staff consists of experienced professionals for whom the client’s health comes first. We have at our disposal only the latest technical equipment, which makes it possible to clean the toilet and carry out effective mercury demercurization. At the end of the process, we will conduct a thorough analysis for any remaining mercury particles. Thus, we provide guarantees for our work, which you can verify for yourself by contacting us. We value our reputation, so Eco Expert specialists take a responsible approach to completing any assigned task. In addition, we have a flexible system of discounts for pensioners and regular customers. Call us right now, we will be happy to help each of you!