Jeff Liebermann wrote:
The State of Maine did some research on the handling of broken CFL lamps
to avoid mercury poisoning. Basically, let the mercury vapor dissipate
before cleaning up the mess. See:
http://maine.gov/dep/rwm/homeowner/cflreport.htm

Thanks for that, Jeff.

I really wish I'd read that before breaking the bulb! ;-)

At the time, I just did what seemed like the best thing
to do, but I only got it about half right.

Nice trick, to use duct tape instead of a vaccuum cleaner.
Now I need to put a new vacuum cleaner on my shopping list.
Thing is, I have 2 of them, and I don't remember which one
I used to clean it up! I assumed that because I didn't see
any mercury, I was just vacuuming up a few tiny bits of
glass. Bummer.

I did some Googling for how much mercury is found in CFL lamps. The
numbers vary from 2.5mg to 10.0mg depending on size. Several
manufacturers advertise low or reduced mercury content in their CFL
bulbs. Methinks 20mg is far too high, unless it's a very large bulb.

It was huge. I'm not sure now, but it might have been a 150 watt equiv.

Fortunately, I've already been through the heavy metal detox thing,
and know how to flush the stuff out of my body pretty quickly. (As
in a couple of years.) Metallic mercury isn't so bad, as compared
to methyl mercury. I was amazed at how quickly I started feeling
better after I had my mercury fillings removed.

Jay Ts
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