Oh yeah, when reading your post I remember coating quarters in my pocket using mercury. Ok, so what’s the difference in recycling tubes vs those squiggly things? They both contain mercury but the disposal of them is different? I have tubes in my garage and when they’re no longer working I take them to the local hazmat dump and pitch them.
I guess that the regular fluorescent tubes have no mercury in them. but many years ago in Naval Preventive Medicine School i was taught that those tubes were extremely dangerous because they contained Beryllium which is a very potent poison.