Mercury thermometers - warning.

[Ed's mum]

Just for the record - vacuuming up mercury is a huge no-no! As would be disposing of the vacuum bag in a normal bin afterwards. It's treated as hazardous waste.

[suncrest]

I'm sure I remember seeing a T.V prog a few years ago/news item about a woman who had informed the council that she was concerned that she had dropped and broken a mercury thermometer on her kitchen floor and that the council had to inform health and safety dept (or some such equivalent) and they sent round men in white coats who quarantined her kitchen and cleared up the mess and then sent her a bill for several hundred pounds!!!! - so just a small warning to you if council gets involved!

[Ed's mum]

Blimey! The most effective way, I found, of picking up mercury was with a squeezy container (like a pipette) to draw it up. Then it has to be safely disposed of.

Never again will I allow anyone (OH in my case) to bring a mercury thermometer into my house. It's a good job we are replacing the upstairs carpets because I also had to cut the carpet out!!

[sp]

Perhaps an old ink cartridge would do the trick? Wash it out first to avoid an inky mess as well as mercury, coulod be a major scientific study!!!