The purpose of the article is to explain to the reader how to collect mercury from the floor from a broken thermometer. This unpleasant situation is dangerous because the substance, once in the open air, begins to evaporate. Inhaling toxic fumes that do not have a pungent odor and color, a person endangers the body. Therefore, mercury must be collected as soon as possible to avoid poisoning.
Harm
The main danger of liquid mercury, which is a strong poison, is that the substance begins to evaporate rapidly at an air temperature of 18–20 ° C. A room thermometer contains approximately 2 grams of a substance - this amount is enough to poison a dozen people. This is a long process, so the symptoms will not appear immediately. According to doctors, about 80% of mercury enters the body through the respiratory system. A person who has been poisoned by this substance has the following symptoms:
- skin rash;
- dizziness;
- nausea;
- sore throat;
- diarrhea;
- high body temperature, etc.
Emerging from a broken thermometer, mercury crumbles into many small balls of silver color. The difficulty is that they can roll into cracks, break and turn into dust that settles on room furniture. If you do not collect mercury from a thermometer on the floor in time, it will evaporate, which will cause air poisoning. Therefore, in this situation, it is necessary to act quickly to prevent the spread of toxic fumes.
Urgent measures
The event to clean the premises from liquid metal - mercury - is called demercurization. There is a mechanical and chemical way to remove this hazardous substance. However, there are a few important things you need to do first. If the thermometer crashed, what urgent measures should be taken is a question, the answer to which should be known in advance. In this situation, you must act in this order:
- Get people and animals out of the room, close doors and open windows. However, you need to make sure that there is no draft, due to which balls of mercury can roll all over the floor, breaking into small pieces.
- Put on protective equipment: a respirator or a gauze bandage soaked in soda solution, latex gloves and shoe covers (you can use regular plastic bags that are fixed on your legs with tape instead).
- Put a broken thermometer in any glass container (for example, in a jar) filled with water and close it tightlylid. During this stage, the main thing is to go outside every 10-15 minutes.
- To hand over waste to the Ministry of Emergency Situations. It is impossible to throw away parts of the thermometer in the toilet and in the landfill.
- Ventilate the room daily for three weeks.
Before you collect mercury from a thermometer from the floor, it is advisable to cover furniture and plants with foil or garbage bags. If the substance has time to spread strongly around the room and no urgent measures are taken, then you will have to call the employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations who will carry out the demercurization procedure or solve this problem on your own.
How to properly remove mercury from a broken thermometer: the necessary tools
Toxic balloons can roll anywhere. The most difficult thing is to extract them from the cracks of the floor covering and the pile of the carpet. If the reader broke the thermometer, as you know, certain devices will help him collect mercury from the floor. The list includes the following tools and tools:
- glass container with lid;
- medical bulb, syringe and knitting needle;
- tassel;
- adhesive-backed tape (such as duct tape or band-aid);
- a piece of cardboard or thick paper;
- garbage bags;
- flashlight (it will be easier to find mercury balls with it);
- disinfectant;
- potassium permanganate solution;
- bleach.
Cleaning flat floors
First, you need to overlay the area wherebroken thermometer, wet cloth. In this way, it will be possible to avoid the spread of mercury on the floor. The easiest way to remove the substance from a flat surface: laminate, linoleum, wood flooring, etc. If the thermometer breaks, the ways to collect mercury from a floor that has a smooth finish are as follows:
- Suck up liquid balls with a syringe (medical pear) or a regular syringe. Mercury must be placed in a glass jar filled with a solution of two percent potassium permanganate.
- Take up the substance from the floor onto cardboard or thick paper with a brush.
- Capture the toxic little droplets with tape or band-aid and put them in a jar of liquid.
- Collect mercury with cotton pads, which must be pre-treated in a solution of potassium permanganate.
However, according to the feedback of people who have encountered such a problem, you need to act in this order:
- Combine small particles of the substance into one ball, rolling them with a brush on paper.
- Send mercury to a jar.
- Collect the remaining drops with adhesive tape and place them in a container with a solution.
- Check if all the balls are removed. Unlit places in the room should be illuminated with a flashlight, since microparticles of the substance can roll into the cracks of the parquet, under the sofa or get behind the baseboard. In some cases, you will need to move furniture or remove decorative items attached to walls.
- Wash the floors several times with an unnecessary rag. First you need to prepare a solution consisting of water and potassium permanganate, and then apply bleach.
- Means of protection and a ragput in a trash bag.
- Take a swim and rinse your mouth and throat thoroughly.
Carpet cleaning
In this case, the process of removing mercury will be a little more complicated, because the substance gets tangled in the villi of the product. Therefore, the carpet should initially be rolled up at the corners to the center so that the balls do not roll onto the flooring. To collect mercury from the mentioned product, which has a long pile coating, you must follow these steps:
- Put the carpet in a tight bag or bag and take it outside.
- Hang the product on a rope and lay a large piece of cellophane or plastic wrap under it. This must be done so that the substance does not fall on the ground.
- Shake the mercury out of the carpet and collect it in a jar of potassium permanganate.
- Leave item outdoors. It must be at least 3 months before it can be laid indoors.
- Wash the carpet with baking soda mixed with soapy water. To prepare a solution, add about 40 g of the mentioned substance to 1 liter of liquid. Instead of soda, you can use a special tool - "Whiteness".
Short pile carpet is cleaned in the same way as a smooth surface.
Kitchen demercurization
Breaking the degree in a room where it is customary to eat and cook food is a big nuisance. In this case, all food will have to be disposed of. If the food was in the refrigerator, they are unlikely to spoil, so they can beleave. The dishes must be washed, as an inconspicuous mercury film will appear on them. It is also better to rinse open containers in potassium permanganate. But sponges and towels need to be disposed of. Even washing in hot water will not save them, since in this case the mercury will dissolve and evaporate.
If it is possible to immediately collect mercury from a thermometer from the floor, according to rescuers, even in this case it is undesirable to eat and cook food in the kitchen in the next month. Furniture that has been exposed to mercury must be disinfected with a chlorine solution. But this should be done by special services (for example, a sanitary and epidemiological station).
Recommendations
Before you collect mercury from a thermometer from the floor, on which there are slots, you need to prepare a knitting needle wrapped in wet cotton wool. However, mercury can also be pushed 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 that will send its employees to check the level of concentration of harmful vapors in the room;
- drink plenty of water while cleaning;
- if part of the contents from a broken thermometer gets on the skin, it must be immediately treated with soapy water and rinsed under running water.
Do Not Do: Common Mistakes
It is forbidden to use a broom, brush and vacuum cleaner to collect mercury. The last device is especially dangerous because the substanceonce inside the device, it will cover its walls and parts with a thin film that will heat up and evaporate. In this case, the vacuum cleaner during operation will emit toxic fumes along with the air flow. A broom and a brush should not be used, as the crushed particles will quickly spread throughout the room during cleaning, making it difficult to detect and collect them.
In addition, the main mistakes include the following points:
- Cleaning up mercury with cloth gloves is a bad idea. Use only rubber products.
- Throwing a broken thermometer and its contents into the garbage chute is prohibited.
- Do not pick up the substance from the carpet with a rag or sponge.
Conclusion
The article considered an unpleasant situation when a thermometer crashed. How to collect mercury and what to do to solve this problem you need to know in advance, since there will be little time to do something. In this case, the main thing is to act quickly and confidently, since the slightest mistake will cause irreversible consequences. To prevent a broken thermometer from becoming a serious problem, you must follow the instructions given in the article.
