Broken Mercury Light Bulb On Carpet

As soon as the accident occurs.

Broken mercury light bulb on carpet.

Place the shards into the glass jar or ziploc bag. If the lamp broke on a carpet you can vacuum but it. Anything that rifles through the broken bits of your bulb is going to risk mercury contamination. Collect the following materials to clean up the broken bulb.

A vacuum cleaner or broom will break the mercury into smaller drops and spread it around more. Stiff paper or cardboard sticky tape damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes for hard surfaces and an airtight container such as a glass jar with a metal lid or a resealable plastic bag. Broken fluorescent bulbs and lamps fluorescent bulbs and lamps including compact fluorescent lights cfls contain a very small amount of mercury sealed within the glass tubing an average of 5 milligrams about the amount that would cover the tip of a ballpoint pen. You can limit contamination by gathering up the large pieces of the broken bulb into a bag and set the bag outside.

Vacuum the area where the bulb was broken using the vacuum hose if available. You ll also want to be sure not to use your vacuum as doing so will risk kicking mercury back up. After you ve gathered what you need re enter the room where the cfl bulb was broken. By comparison older thermometers contain a 500 milligrams of mercury.

The droplets will evaporate faster and increase your chance of breathing high levels of mercury vapor. Tiny mercury droplets will settle throughout the area increasing the spread of the mercury in the room. They will be harder to clean up. And remove the vacuum bag or empty and wipe the canister and seal the bag vacuum debris and any materials used to clean the vacuum in a plastic bag.

The most important steps to reduce exposure to mercury vapor from a broken bulb are. Havepeople and pets leave the room. Leave the windows vents and doors to the outside open in order to continue to let the mercury vapor dissipate. Cfls contain mercury a potentially dangerous substance that escapes from broken cfls into the immediate surroundings and therefore the breakage of a cfl bulb should be handled by carefully.

The room should then be left to air out for an hour or so.