Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/09/11
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Metallic mercury is not particularly harmful - but some organic compounds that contain mercury are lethal and that´s what caused Minamata, not mercury batteries. All the best! Raimo photos at http://personal.inet.fi/private/raimo.korhonen - -----Alkuperäinen viesti----- Lähettäjä: Jim Brick <jim_brick@agilent.com> Vastaanottaja: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>; leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us> Päivä: 08. syyskuuta 2000 20:29 Aihe: [Leica] Re: Re: Battery adapter wanted (became a long story) >At 09:34 AM 9/8/00 -0700, Chuck Albertson wrote: >>The stuff rots your brain, especially kids' brains---take a look at the >>back-of-the-book photos in Minimata for examples. If mercury is still being >>used in flourescent lights, it's probably due to a lack of alternative >>materials at the moment (or the political clout of the flourescent light >>manufacturers). There are alternatives to its use in batts, however, which >>is why it can and should be banned in them. In all of the contaminated >>landfill cases I've been involved in the past 10 years, mercury is one the >>most common (and persistent) contaminant in most of them, and it's generally >>put down to discarded batts in household waste. >> >>Chuck Albertson >>Seattle, Wash. > >Aa Ha! > >This explains why I am like I am. I played with mercury by the hours as a >kid. We coated all of out coins, giving them that slick glossy silver look. >Cool! I made a mercury barometer as my science project in high school. I >still have the pound or two of mercury I used as the well. Still in the >same container with a hole in the top for the glass tube to stick through. >I guess I won't drink it though. > >I've always wondered why the many many tens of thousands of kids that grew >up in the hundreds of years before the EPA, who played with metallic >(liquid) mercury and grew up to be CEO's Scientists, Business moguls, etc, >never had a rotten brain problem? > >Perhaps it is the form, pure liquid Hg vs a particular mercury compound >ingested, that caused the Minimata problem. > > > >Jim Brick, ASMP >Senior Scientist >Agilent Technologies >Imaging Electronics Division >jim_brick@agilent.com