The purpose of the article is to explain to the reader how to collect mercury from a broken thermometer from the floor. 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 smell and color, a person exposes the body to danger. Therefore, to avoid poisoning, mercury must be collected as soon as possible.
Harm
The main danger of liquid mercury, which is a strong poison, is believed to be that the substance begins to evaporate rapidly at an air temperature of 18–20 ° C. In a room thermometer is approximately 2 grams of the 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 with the indicated substance has the following symptoms:
- skin rash;
- dizziness;
- nausea;
- a sore throat;
- diarrhea;
- increased body temperature, etc.
Leaking from a broken thermometer, mercury is scattered into many small balls of silver color. The difficulty is that they can roll into cracks, break and turn into dust, which settles on room furniture. If mercury is not collected on time from the thermometer on the floor, 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 action
The event to clean the room of liquid metal - mercury - is called demercurization. There is a mechanical and chemical way to remove this dangerous substance. However, initially, several important steps must be taken. If the thermometer crashed, what urgent measures should be taken - a question for which the answer should be known in advance. In this situation, it is necessary to act in this order:
- Take people and animals out of the room, close the doors and open the windows. However, it must be ensured that there is no draft, due to which balls of mercury can roll out across the floor, breaking up into small pieces.
- Wear protective equipment: a respirator or gauze bandage soaked in a solution of soda, latex gloves and shoe covers (instead of them, you can use ordinary plastic bags that are fixed on the legs with tape).
- Put the broken thermometer in any glass container (for example, in a jar) filled with water, and close it tightly with a lid. During this stage, the main thing is to go out every 10-15 minutes.
- Hand over waste to the Ministry of Emergencies. Do not throw parts of the thermometer into the toilet and into 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 a film or garbage bags. If the substance has time to spread strongly around the room and urgent measures are not taken, it means that you will have to call the Ministry of Emergency Situations who will conduct the demercurization procedure or solve this problem yourself.
How to remove mercury from a crashed thermometer: the necessary tools
Toxic balls can roll anywhere. The most difficult thing is to remove them from the cracks of the floor covering and the pile of the carpet. If the reader has broken a thermometer, it is known that certain devices will help him collect mercury from the floor. The list includes such tools and tools:
- glass container with a lid;
- pear, syringe and knitting needle;
- brush;
- tape with an adhesive backing (for example, adhesive tape or adhesive);
- a piece of cardboard or thick paper;
- garbage bags;
- flashlight (with its help it will be easier to find mercury balls);
- disinfectant;
- potassium permanganate solution;
- bleaching powder.
Cleaning a flat floor
First you need to cover the area where the thermometer crashed with a wet cloth. This will prevent the spread of mercury across the floor. The easiest way to remove the substance from a flat surface: laminate, linoleum, wood flooring, etc. If a thermometer crashes, the methods for collecting mercury from a floor that has a smooth coating are as follows:
- Suck up liquid balls with a syringe (pear) or a regular syringe. Mercury should be placed in a glass jar filled with a solution of two percent potassium permanganate.
- Collect material from the floor onto cardboard or heavy paper using a brush.
- Grab toxic small drops with tape or tape and send them to a jar of liquid.
- Collect mercury with cotton pads, which must be pre-treated in a solution of potassium permanganate.
However, according to reviews 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 duct tape and place them in a solution container.
- Check if all balls are removed. Unlit areas of the room need to be illuminated with a flashlight, since the microparticles of the substance can roll into the cracks of the floor, under the sofa or get behind the baseboard. In some cases, it is necessary to move furniture or remove decorative elements attached to the walls.
- Wash floors several times with an unnecessary rag. First you need to prepare a solution consisting of water and potassium permanganate, and then apply bleach.
- Put the protective equipment and a rag in a garbage bag.
- Swim and gargle thoroughly with a throat.
Carpet cleaning
In this case, the mercury removal process will be slightly more complicated, as the substance gets entangled in the villi of the product. Therefore, the carpet should initially be turned corners to the center so that the balls do not roll onto the floor covering. In order to collect mercury from the aforementioned product having a long-nap coating, it is necessary to perform the following steps:
- Put the carpet in a tight bag or bag and take it outside.
- Hang the product on a rope and lay under it a large segment of cellophane or plastic film. This must be done so that the substance does not fall on the ground.
- Shake mercury from the carpet and collect it in a pot of potassium permanganate.
- Leave the product in the open air. A minimum of 3 months must pass before it can be laid indoors.
- Wash the carpet with baking soda mixed in soapy water. To prepare the solution, add about 40 g of the substance to 1 liter of liquid. Instead of soda, you can use a special tool - "White".
A short pile rug is cleaned using the same technique as a smooth surface.
Kitchen demercurization
To break a degree in a room in which 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, it is unlikely to spoil, so you can leave it. The dishes must be washed, because an invisible mercury film will appear on it. Open containers are also better to rinse in potassium permanganate. But sponges and towels need to be disposed of. Even washing in hot water will not save them, because the mercury will then dissolve and evaporate.
If you can immediately collect mercury from a thermometer from the floor, according to the rescuers, even in this case it is undesirable to take 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, sanitary and epidemiological station).
Recommendations
Before you collect mercury from a thermometer from the floor, on which there are gaps, you need to prepare a knitting needle, wrapped with damp 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 such 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 fumes in the room;
- during cleaning you need to drink a lot of water;
- if part of the contents from the broken thermometer gets on the skin, it must be immediately treated with soapy water and washed under running water.
What you can't do: common mistakes
It is forbidden to use a broom, brush and vacuum cleaner to collect mercury. The last device is especially dangerous, since the substance, once inside the device, will cover its walls and parts with a thin film that will heat up and evaporate. In this case, the vacuum cleaner will emit toxic fumes along with the air stream during operation. The broom and brush cannot be used, since crushed particles during cleaning quickly spread around the room, making it difficult to detect and collect.
In addition, the following errors belong to the main errors:
- Putting mercury in cloth gloves is a bad idea. Only rubber products must be used.
- It is forbidden to throw a broken thermometer and its contents into the chute.
- Do not collect material with a 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 needs to be known in advance, since there will be little time to take something. In this case, the main thing is to act quickly and confidently, since the slightest mistake will cause irreversible consequences. So that a broken thermometer does not become a serious problem, you must follow the instructions that are given in the article.