If It's Not Broken...Replace It Anyway
If you were sick lately, you might have taken your temperature with a
glass fever thermometer. Did you watch the silver line go up and up?
What you were looking at wasn't silver. It was mercury. Mercury is a
heavy metal that is liquid at room temperature.
If your thermometer breaks, the mercury will spill out. It then forms a
gas that is harmful. Mercury mainly affects the nervous system, but it
can harm the liver, kidneys, and skin too. Outdoors, mercury forms a
poisonous compound. The compound finds its way into the water
system. And from there, it gets into fish, which humans may eat.
If you have a mercury thermometer, ask your parents to consider
replacing it with a digital one. It will show your temperature in
numbers. They are not expensive, and you can find them easily.
They're accurate too. As for the old thermometer, turn it in at a
waste collection center. (Take burned-out fluorescent lamps there
too. They also contain mercury.)
Source: Current Health 1, Nov2002, Vol. 26 Issue 3, p2, 1p