Mercury from energy light bulb due to breakage?

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Hi all I’m super confused my light smashed onto me tonight covering me my sofa and the floor. My partner hoovered up the shards of glass so is now for the bin but what about my sofa we washed the cover straight away but I’ve read that contaminates the washing machine so is everything I’ve washed since ruined I’m totally having a meltdown as we have a 7 month old in the flat advice?

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  • First, there’s hardly any mercury at all in a CFL, it would be measured in micrograms. You would actually get more mercury by wearing gold jewelry or eating a steak BBQ’d over commercially available briquettes like Kingsford which are half coal. Your 7yo probably gets more mercury sucking on a painted toy.

    Second, it isn’t the mercury that is dangerous, what is dangerous is if the mercury gets into an anaerobic environment such as a landfill where micro-organisms will change it into methyl mercury which is very toxic but more importantly, bioaccumulates in the food chain. Indeed, the lakes banned for mercury are not the ones with high mercury content but the ones that are deep enough to have an anoxic zone which is anaerobic, there are plenty of lakes with higher mercury levels where the fish aren’t banned.

    The whole Mercury in CFL’s are dangerous only demonstrates the ignorance of the public.

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