[supercat]

Heck, when I was working for a fairly large industrial concern many years ago, we routinely broke burned out eight foot fluorescent tubes in to smaller pieces so they would fit in the dumpsters instead of leaving them sticking out where kids might take them out and break them on the pavement.

If done outdoors, I don't see a particular problem. Any glass in compacted trash is likely to get broken, and much of the mercury will dissipate into the air before it goes into a landfill. The quantities involved are really tiny in any case.

I would not want to make a job of smashing thousands of fluorescent tubes daily in a poorly-ventilate 10'x10'x10' room, but for people without unusual mercury sensitivity a one-off exposure from a broken bulb isn't going to be particularly harmful.

[Swordmaker]

I would not want to make a job of smashing thousands of fluorescent tubes daily in a poorly-ventilate 10'x10'x10' room, but for people without unusual mercury sensitivity a one-off exposure from a broken bulb isn't going to be particularly harmful.

I agree. We often tried to get a little of the mercury that was still metallic in the tubes. They used a lot more in those big eight foot tubes than they use in CFLs... and Mercury wasn't as expensive back then as it is today. I used to have a medicine bottle filled with Mercury that I had scavenged from broken thermometers and from those tubes. Each one might have a 1/32nd to 1/16th inch bead still left in it unevaporated. My point on this thread is that incidental exposure to Mercury is not dangerous... and the amount in a CFL is really small.