[LegendHasIt]

More silly alarmism, hye and nonsense.

One of those 4 foot long tubes has about 23 micrograms of mercury in it. It takes more than a million of the 4 ft. tubes to make an ounce of mercury.

A screw in replacement bulb has about 5 micrograms. So you would have to break about five million of them to release an ounce of mercury.

Is mercury dangerous? Yes, a bit.

Is it as dangerous as they say?

NO.

I probably ingested, inhaled and absorbed an ounce of it during my days as an ‘alchemist’.... And I’m only slightly retarded mentally and not deformed or physically ill because of it.

[loungitude]

Thank you for your figures and wisdom.

[Wiseghy]

If that is so, then those old household thermostats are practically mini-chernobyls in comparison.

I still have a small 1/2 ounce “blob” of the stuff from the mercury switch that was inside one of those things.

It is safely stored in a sturdy sampling jar. The switch only dated from the 1980's, so that stuff is still all around us in electrical appliances.