Question of the Week: How do you protect children from mercury?
Posted on October 5th, 2009 - 10:30 AM
Exposure to mercury can result from misuse or overuse of mercury-containing products. Even something that seems as small as a broken thermometer needs to be cleaned up and disposed of properly. October is Children’s Health Month.
How do you protect children from mercury?
Each week we ask a question related to the environment. Please let us know your thoughts as comments. Feel free to respond to earlier comments or post new ideas. Previous questions.
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Question of the Week
October 5th, 2009 at 11:48 am
I protect my children from mercury by lobbying against coal powered electricity — since coal powered electricity causes most of the mercury emissions into the atmosphere! Further, our family personally commits to paying the small premium necessary to purchase 100% Green Electricity, so that none of electricity use causes the emission of mercury. Further, to the extent possible our household is switching from CFLs to LED lighting — we got rid of all our incandescent lighting years ago!
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October 5th, 2009 at 11:54 am
I do not use CFL bulbs. If they are not in the house (or landfills) then I do not need to worry so much about it.
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October 5th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
We must all understand that the best way to protect our children is not avoid them to expose against Mercury only.
We have multiple others elements chemistry like: Gases and Metalloids. We have to be aware of all them for a better children heath safety interest.
Those can never be place on where children can reach them.
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October 5th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
The children’s life is one of the Mercury . The mercury how to using depended upon users . catch the Mercury but not receive to taken the mercury. any body not caught the mercury . the mercury caught to divided small parts. The children to coveted best thinning side to not strong instruction but slowly and happy to given some example to one of he story type to give to children s.the children mind to broken any kind of solution not their in the world to attaching the children’s mind.
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Anonymous reply on October 11, 2009 3:42 pm:
What was that?///////////
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B. Yomama reply on October 11, 2009 3:43 pm:
What was that all about? English please.
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Jersey Jim reply on October 11, 2009 5:39 pm:
Yes, resist can I not — to my mind your thought I do not receive quite, I believe? But I disagree to think but strong instruction to KEEP children happy; not slow and happy story! Not?
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rattshaman reply on October 27, 2009 9:51 pm:
It’s quite clear what M. Ramakrishna Rao is saying… Mercury will thin your hair and make your children happy… Difficulty to understanding so why?
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October 5th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
The popular use of CFL bulbs as a “Green” alternative is great. Everyone should utilize the CFL technology to reduce electrictiy consumption at the source.
However, we must utilize care in the event one of the bulbs is broken. They do contain a small amount of mercury to produce the light source.
Every vendor I have contacted on this has specific guidlines in the event of a borken bulb. You should call the 1-800 number on your source to obtain their guidance.
Here are a few general rules:
1. The amount of mercury in a CFL is very small, so do not panic!
2. Move all children away for the area!
2. Open doors and windows to allow ventelation to occur and leave the area for a short time.
3. Be aware that the major cause of injury is the small thin broken glass pieces. Take extra care to move children away until a proper clean-up has occurred.
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Bgcoffeelover reply on October 5, 2009 2:54 pm:
Another thought - Educating Kids on the dangers of mercury in our world is really a key point to long term protection and prevention. If our Kids are taught that mercury and other harmful elements should be eliminated from our daily lives. They will propagate this throughout their life. “An ounce of prevention….”
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October 5th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
please stop putting thimersol in vaccines and the flu shot.
stop mountain top removal for easy access of coal in WVA
stop coal fired plants.
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Jim Lallement reply on October 6, 2009 2:30 pm:
Thimerosol is no longer used in most vaccines and the amount of
mercury in past vaccines was below threshold limit values.
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Leslie Scales reply on October 6, 2009 6:26 pm:
What are “threshold limit values”? And were they calculated for children? (Most EPA standards were not.)
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Matt reply on October 14, 2009 3:26 pm:
Stop drinking kool-aid. I hear that there is mercury in it!
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October 6th, 2009 at 1:05 am
I would treat light bulbs and thermometers like medications. Keep them out of the reach of children in high cabinets with locks on the doors. If the bulb or thermometer breaks get children out of the room before starting cleanup and keep them out until clean up is over. Best wishes, Michael E. Bailey.
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October 6th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
This is so pitiful! All these miniscule adjustments serve only to assuage the worries of parents too busy struggling to make a living to realize the coal-fired power plants go right on pumping out tons of mercury tainted smoke regardless of how many people change their lightbulbs! So the number of children born with autism keeps on rising past the 1% now apparent, onward to ecocide with business as usual! The obvious solution is to close down the coal-fired power plants and convert to solar, wind and bicycle, but that would cost billions and disrupt the daily flow of commerce, not OK (!)
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October 6th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Even with all the warnings, there are some people who still will only throw out a broken CFL and will not take it to a safe disposal or recycle location. They just can’t see that it matters… how well are children protected when there are holes in the system?
As far as bulbs with mercury are concerned, I’d like to see a deposit charged for household things (that can harm children), one of which is CFLs, but you get the deposit back when it is taken to a proper recycling place.
I’m curious: how many tons of mercury CFLs does the EPA allow to be shipped to China for “recycling”? Do the Chinese melt down the smashed bulbs to reclaim the mercury too, like they do other stuff from old computers? It should be illegal to ship American trash overseas.
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October 7th, 2009 at 11:40 am
The best way to protect your children from mercury is to first eliminate any possible elemental mercury exposure in the home (such as a thermometer) and most importantly is to follow your state’s fish consumption advisory to protect your child from unwanted methylmercury exposure.
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October 7th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
It is very simple, do not allow children below 15 years to handle Mercury Thermometers whether in good condition or broken or even useless. Educate them about it and its impact on health grounds.
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October 8th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
I hate the idea of being required to use only CFL bulbs. If I had a dollar for every time my son on the autism spectrum has broken a lamp…I could buy a new lamp!
If we did break one, how do I as a parent and elementary school teacher know that I cleaned it up properly? What about the little drop that I missed? I’m a pretty good teacher but I’m NOT a HAZMAT handler!
I am planning to stockpile the “old” bulbs. I just don’t know when I need to start.
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October 9th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
I protect my children from mercury by not allowing them to be injected with it.
Most flu shots, both seasonal and H1N1, come in multi-dose vials. All flu vaccines from multi-dose vials contain 25 mcg of mercury. That’s a lot! By comparison, the amount that is considered “trace” for vaccines is 0.3 mcg.
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October 10th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
I don’t allow CFL bulbs into my house. The thought of one breaking terrifies me. It’s also very scary that most people do not dispose of them properly.
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October 12th, 2009 at 10:34 am
Surely we need to look for substitutes for Mercury in thermometers, in Bulbs and what about in dental amalgams??
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October 12th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
“How do you protect your children from Mercury?”
The Planet - If Mercury remains in its orbit and the earth stays in its orbit, we should be fine.
The Car - My neighbor owns Mercury and he usually keeps it in his garage. However, when my neighbor forgets to do this and leaves it in his driveway, I make the kids wear long overcoats with asbestos sewn into the lining for protection when they play outside.
The element – We lost our handles to our set of freezer-pops. I bought 6 mercury thermometers as replacement handles as I thought it would be easier for the kids to determine when the freezer pops were frozen, without bugging me about when they were ready. Anyway, this past summer Emily apparently bit down too hard on her handle and it broke. She cut her lip and smeared her face with the shiny silver stuff that was in the thermometer. The bad news is that now we only have five freezer pop handles.
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