In article ,
Christopher Tidy wrote:

ATP* wrote:

Some idiot science teacher in a local middle school sprinkled a small
amount
of mercury on a lab table to show the kids how the drops roll. That episode
cost the school district a few thousand dollars in monitoring and cleanup.
If a quart of mercury was dropped, there would be a financial disaster.

This is sad, and quite unnecessary. You pick up all the drops, and check
it isn't spilt under the bench, and you'll be fine. Anything remaining
which is too small to see is insufficient to cause harm. The biggest
danger is if you get a hidden spill, which doesn't get cleaned up.

In the 1960s, the standard lab cleanup approach for spilled mercury was
to sprinkle flowers of sulfur on the floor, sweep it around, wait a
while, and vacuum it all up. One can do this periodically to catch
undetected spills, as the sulfur is cheap and harmless.

I recall reading this in lab handbooks of that day as well.

Joe Gwinn