On 14/08/2012 19:02, djornsk wrote:
Some 30 years ago I broke a manometer used for balancing carbs and
collected the mercury into a glass jar which has been living in the shed.
I recently became a bit bothered about the potential risk should someone
disturb it when I am not around, so decided to take it to the local
recycling centre after establishing that they would accept it so long as
it was inside a sealed container.

So far so good. Although you would have been better off selling it to a
place that recycles waste mercury - it is a fairly valuable if toxic
liquid metal. Your local school or university chemical lab would have
been a better bet for knowing what to do with it.

I have seen Maxwell's spur demonstrated live in a classroom and that
arcs and sparks into hot liquid mercury. That is dangerous.

To my supply the attendant took the jar and instead of taking it to a
secure cabinet as I expected just threw it in the metal recycling skip.
I can understand that mercury is a metal but so is plutonium and one
wouldn't expect that to be thrown in with the scrap.

Clueless monkey with single digit IQ and life expectancy to match.

I have also seen the morons at our recycling tip putting asbestos cement
boards into a crusher covered head to toe in white dust. No PPE

Perhaps the explaination lies in the fact that the risks are to a degree
mitigated by mechanical handling and adequate ventilation from the time
the scrap is deposited in the skips, or alternatively the handling and
storage precautions ISTR from my schooldays were OTT.

j

Mercury metal isn't all that bad unless you breath the fumes. Mercury
salts and especially organomercury compounds can be seriously deadly. An
ICPMS practitioner was killed by a tiny leak in a protective glove
working with methyl mercury a few years back.

Mercury metal was used until fairly recently for zenith transit
telescopes and has made a resurgence for spinning mirror scopes eg:

http://www.astro.ubc.ca/lmt/lzt/

The explanation at the tip is that they don't know WTF they are doing.
The simplest way to make it inert is to mix it into zinc powder to make
a crude version of dental amalgam which is then more or less inert.

Your mercury actually had resale value and should have been sold to
someone who knew how to handle it rather than handed over to a moron.

Regards,
Martin Brown

"Martin Brown" wrote in message
...
On 14/08/2012 19:02, djornsk wrote:
Some 30 years ago I broke a manometer used for balancing carbs and
collected the mercury into a glass jar which has been living in the shed.
I recently became a bit bothered about the potential risk should someone
disturb it when I am not around, so decided to take it to the local
recycling centre after establishing that they would accept it so long as
it was inside a sealed container.

So far so good. Although you would have been better off selling it to a
place that recycles waste mercury - it is a fairly valuable if toxic
liquid metal. Your local school or university chemical lab would have been
a better bet for knowing what to do with it.

I have seen Maxwell's spur demonstrated live in a classroom and that arcs
and sparks into hot liquid mercury. That is dangerous.

To my supply the attendant took the jar and instead of taking it to a
secure cabinet as I expected just threw it in the metal recycling skip.
I can understand that mercury is a metal but so is plutonium and one
wouldn't expect that to be thrown in with the scrap.

Clueless monkey with single digit IQ and life expectancy to match.

I have also seen the morons at our recycling tip putting asbestos cement
boards into a crusher covered head to toe in white dust. No PPE

Perhaps the explaination lies in the fact that the risks are to a degree
mitigated by mechanical handling and adequate ventilation from the time
the scrap is deposited in the skips, or alternatively the handling and
storage precautions ISTR from my schooldays were OTT.

j

Mercury metal isn't all that bad unless you breath the fumes. Mercury
salts and especially organomercury compounds can be seriously deadly. An
ICPMS practitioner was killed by a tiny leak in a protective glove working
with methyl mercury a few years back.

If you're referring to the 1997 Dartford incident, there was no leak in the
glove. They were unaware that the latex glove was insufficient protection to
prevent exposure to some 80 times the lethal dose from one drop.

The glove was porous to the single drop of dimethylmercury accidentally
spilled on it, further experiments after the event showed that only the
extremely heavy duty laminated nitrile gloves suitable for handling chemical
weapons provided any protection whatsoever.

Jake wrote:

Clueless monkey with single digit IQ and life expectancy to match.

I have also seen the morons at our recycling tip

We can't all be clever like you. Have a bit of humility.

Bill

"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
Jake wrote:

Clueless monkey with single digit IQ and life expectancy to match.

I have also seen the morons at our recycling tip

We can't all be clever like you. Have a bit of humility.


Ironically, I didn't write that.

"Jake" wrote in message
...


"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
Jake wrote:

Clueless monkey with single digit IQ and life expectancy to match.

I have also seen the morons at our recycling tip

We can't all be clever like you. Have a bit of humility.


Ironically, I didn't write that.

There ya go!
Humility with a cherry on top.

On Tuesday, 14 August 2012 21:27:52 UTC+1, Martin Brown wrote:
On 14/08/2012 19:02, djornsk wrote:

...

Mercury metal was used until fairly recently for zenith transit

telescopes and has made a resurgence for spinning mirror scopes eg:

It is used in the Souter Lighthouse (http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/sout...-and-the-leas/) today. The whole lens assembly floats in a ring of mercury, making it so frictionless that you can rotate the two-tonne assembly with a finger.

-- Jason

"Jason Judge" wrote in message
...
On Tuesday, 14 August 2012 21:27:52 UTC+1, Martin Brown wrote:
On 14/08/2012 19:02, djornsk wrote:

...

Mercury metal was used until fairly recently for zenith transit

telescopes and has made a resurgence for spinning mirror scopes eg:

It is used in the Souter Lighthouse
(http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/sout...-and-the-leas/) today.
The whole lens assembly floats in a ring of mercury, making it so
frictionless that you can rotate the two-tonne assembly with a finger.

-- Jason


Likewise, the rotating arms on the bug-beds in sewage processing plants.
They are propelled round by nothing more than the force of the water gently
exiting the holes all along the arm. Or at least that was the case some
years back when a mate of mine was technical director at the local works.
Maybe these days, they have a different bearing arrangement.

Arfa