So a lamp I was using in my studio fell to the floor and the bulb broke into a zillion pieces. The light bulb was one of those spiral, low energy output, but toxic bulbs that are said to release mercury if broken. I have heard that the thing to do is sweep up the glass, (not use a vacuum), wet mop, and ventilate the space.

Well, since I live in an apartment that is pre-war, with wooden floors that have open spaces between the planks, and the only window in the room opened up into an air shaft, I had no choice but to vacuum, and then turn on the exhaust fan that was (thankfully) installed in the window recently. I did dispose of the vacuum bag outside, and wet-mopped the floor, but...

Now- what to do? Eat lots of chlorella and hope it dissipates?

Ugh.

P.S.: Although I have a couple of air cleaner machines, not sure if they can handle toxic metal purification.

When we moved into this house all the bulbs were compact flourescents, I broke one in our bedroom setting up the mattress and it went everywhere. Do you know, I phoned several stores that carry them and NOT ONE OF THEM had any information whatsoever about how to clean up a broken bulb. In fact, the people I spoke to in lighting department after lighting department didn't even have any idea that those bulbs contained mercury and required any special clean up measures at all. How is that possible, to sell a product that is potentially deadly and not only neglect to include neccessary info on the package but also not inform the distributors and vendors? That's unbelievable to me! The following is the info I collected online, pass it on.

If you break a CF bulb HOLD YOUR BREATH! Open a window immediately and leave the room, closing the door, to air it out for a minimum of 15 minutes.
Wear gloves and collect all the pieces you can find, use a piece of tape to pat the area to pick up any dust or particles. It is dangerous to vacuum this stuff up, even to sweep it and cause it to become airborne, you don't want to be breathing it in At All! If you must vacuum, clean out the canister and hoses, change and carefully dispose of the bag, throw away any cloths you use for wiping it out. If you have to wash any fabric that has been contaminated do so carefully, I would wash the items more than once, and rinse out your washer very well to make sure there is no residue left behind.

You know, it is entirely possible to make these bulbs without mercury, there are some on the market. It's worth it I think to inform the powers that be that this is the only option we are willing to accept. I'm not going to replace a common household item with something dangerous, that's foolish and I just won't do it. I'd rather burn candles or live in the dark.


Juice lots of cilantro, have some wheatgrass if you can.

O.M.G. Okay, I did almost everything wrong. I didn't wear gloves, I vacuumed, I breathed it in. And when the hose of the vacuum cleaner got clogged with the bigger bits of the glass bulb, I tried to unclog it, sending all the pieces tumbling back onto the floor again, breaking them into even smaller bits...

Thank you, coco, for the research and info.

I am off to buy some cilantro. Bunches of it.

Dang.

I hate these compact bulbs with a passion. I don't like them from the standpoint that they do not provide as much light as they say and I have to buy a higher wattage to perceive the same amount of light as an incandescent. So, I use as much, if not more energy using these 'energy savers' and at added cost to my health.

But, I had a friend who had a bulb break in her hand while screwing it in. The glass cut her and presumably some mercury entered her system. And, no there really isn't much info. out there on what to do about that. Ive always been told to eat Brazil nuts with fish because the high selenium content can help chelate the mercury and pull it out of the body. It doesn't have to be many (three or four is enough).

The bulbs are supposed to only have 5 mg of mercury compared to the 500 of a mercury thermometer (which I have also broken in the past). I guess that's supposed to be a plus. But, it would be better not to have any mercury at all.

There are some guidelines for clean-up if it happens in the future.
EPA Guidelines for Clean-up

Looks like I didn't do it right either, I should have trown out the bed and bedding. As if. Thankfully the washer I used has been replaced since then but wow, what a catastrophe to break one of those things.
That document you linked is TWO PAGES LONG! How can they come without a warning or any clean up instructions on the package? Sheesh.

coco Wrote:
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> That document you linked is TWO PAGES LONG! How
> can they come without a warning or any clean up
> instructions on the package? Sheesh.


Seriously, that in itself should be a red flag that maybe mandating this technology could wait until it's safer. An energy savings at the cost of human health and earthly pollution isn't really a savings.

They do need to be made safer. I have handled mercury from broken thermometers a few times and evidently didn't die or become the Mad Hatter, so if you just get a lot of green juices in and ventilate the apartment, I think you should be OK.

Sure, one exposure isn't going to kill you and we should be just fine (I *hope* the baby is not super sensitive to this, especially since we sleep in that bed with that bedding in the room with that carpet most nights) but heavy metal toxicity accumulates so... I haven't broken a lot of thermometers in my life, light bulbs are a different story.

mercury itself isnt toxic interestingly enough, however the gasses produced while its in its liquid form are highly toxic... a random fact I always found interesting, sooo freeze yourself and youl be ok...wait...hmmm...that doesn't really help does it? its ok though, cleanse, seaweed I heard is helpful with that as well, and you should be fine unless this is a common occurrence ^_^

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

My high school physics teacher brought out an open container of mercury one day to demonstrate what interesting proberties it had. He stoically tolerated me placing my class ring onto it "helping" to emphasize his point that the fluid has extremely high density. My classmates chuckled as the ring hardly sank in. Hmmm, didn't do the ring any good.

I have a shop vac that has an exhaust port where a hose can be attached, which can then be run to a window (downwind hopefully) sending any micro-particles outdoors. I use the same sort of setup when using a power sander. I'm not sure how that would work with close neighbors...

Best of luck.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/12/2010 01:51PM by loeve.

What an interesting thread, especially since hubby recently replaced all the lights with fluorescents.

[www.holistichelp.net]

This site says to "cut out a piece of the carpeting" if the bulb breaks on the carpeting.

And it recommends LED lights, which sound like the best alternative once incandecents are phased out.

LED is awesome, just considerably more expensive for decent quality ones that will last...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

The light from LEDs is Horrible! A friend was working for a company that manufactured and sold them, eco-friendly, yadda yadda but ugh. Pure headache material that light. It's dreadful unfortunately.

I am going to stock up big time if incadesants are phased out.Nothing like the warm glow of them and what I have known all my life.

I once broke an 8' flourescent tube and I just vacumed it up and went on my merry way.No ill effects.That was 25 yrs ago.

Vinny



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/2010 01:54PM by eaglefly.

seaweeds are good as they containa alginates, the brown seaweed in my link is extracted to contain the highest amount of alginates for this reason.

Chlorella is also good as is pectins from fruits and vegetables.

NAC is also good.

Coco - I have to disagree. Some LED's are brilliant. WE have them in our caravan and they give out a lovely soft gentle light - far better than the lights it was fitted with.

My experience with LED's is totally positive

Flipperjan please do pass along the company name, I'd be happy to switch if they were good ones!

So now, when you buy a house, you have no way of knowing where there may have been broken lightbulbs and residual mercury. Better get new carpet everytime you buy a new house :-(.

I'd love to know the name of LEDs too please.

Flipper jan is correct, although I must say it depends on the LED, pretty much every wavelength of light is able to be produced with LED's, the problem is the cheapest ones to reproduce are not exactly the most useful wavelengths (in most cases at least.) ones used for growing plants, both terrestrial and aquatic, are really dang expensive, ones that are comfortable for everyday use by humans are on average moderately priced, with some less comfortable ones being extremely cheap, customer filters can be used to soften and diffuse the light from the cheaper ones, I made my own for strings of LED's I got for $5 for a string of 100 from china...So I now have glowing purple tubes(I used a mix of blue and red LED's) all around my ceiling for ambient lighting, they wouldn't work to well for reading though, but I got some sweet comfortable ambient lighting for $20 with multiple flash patterns and just plain solid burning... I love one combo I do where it flashes between blue, red, and the combo which makes purple...^_^

I am rather certain though that if someone took the cheap ones, put them all facing one direction, and inset them into a highly reflective casing/heatsink, you could get some pretty strong spotlight action... they do produce heat, just far less than any other form of light, and a decent heatsink just helps prolong the life of the bulbs, but isnt really need with anything other than the high powered ones commonly used for growing plants... I will pull up some various sites for you soon if better sources aren't found while im gone, but I need to go get some sleepsoon here,lol

coco Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The light from LEDs is Horrible! A friend was
> working for a company that manufactured and sold
> them, eco-friendly, yadda yadda but ugh. Pure
> headache material that light. It's dreadful
> unfortunately.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?