When I was young my Dad bought me some mercury home from work… I loved how it moved when I shook the bottle and the weight of it.
When I had my own kids I didn’t want it around, so our local council had set up a event where you could dispose of household liquids like old paints and solvents, so I took it down. When I drove up, the guy asked me what I was disposing of so I said mercury. It was bizarre. I was told to stay in the car and a guy came out of a shed in a full hazmat suit with one of those pairs of metal tongs to retrieve it from me.
I remember Dad telling me that miners used to collect gold pan tailings in mercury and then of a night they would hollow out a potato and put the mercury in, and then put that in the camp fire… it would burn off the mercury and leave a little ingot of gold.
I had to search for “organic mercury”, it’s dimethylmercury and it doesn’t look like mercury at all. Do people really call it “mercury” or “organic mercury”? It’s on par with pounds as a measure of mass, weight, and force by the amount of confusion, I’d say 🤔
sad story
that was in the top of search results about dimethylmercury:
sad but also a bit ironic fate 🫡 that’s why I prefer not to do dangerous things even when protection and/or safety is in place.
Its also harmless, generally, when ingested as the gastrointestinal absorption of elemental mercury is negligible. It is inhalation that is most concerning with elemental mercury.
Except eating paint chips with lead made a lot of kids dumb. Lead based paint held up awesome, but it was banned due to injection. Not inhalation. Even now, 40+ years later it’s still the leading cause of lead poisoning in children.
When I was young my Dad bought me some mercury home from work… I loved how it moved when I shook the bottle and the weight of it.
When I had my own kids I didn’t want it around, so our local council had set up a event where you could dispose of household liquids like old paints and solvents, so I took it down. When I drove up, the guy asked me what I was disposing of so I said mercury. It was bizarre. I was told to stay in the car and a guy came out of a shed in a full hazmat suit with one of those pairs of metal tongs to retrieve it from me.
I remember Dad telling me that miners used to collect gold pan tailings in mercury and then of a night they would hollow out a potato and put the mercury in, and then put that in the camp fire… it would burn off the mercury and leave a little ingot of gold.
Probably because they didn’t know WHICH type of mercury you had. Organic mercury can kill on touch with a single drop. Best not to take chances.
I had to search for “organic mercury”, it’s dimethylmercury and it doesn’t look like mercury at all. Do people really call it “mercury” or “organic mercury”? It’s on par with pounds as a measure of mass, weight, and force by the amount of confusion, I’d say 🤔
sad story
that was in the top of search results about dimethylmercury:
sad but also a bit ironic fate 🫡 that’s why I prefer not to do dangerous things even when protection and/or safety is in place.
It’s actually harmless if not ingested. They were being weird.
Its also harmless, generally, when ingested as the gastrointestinal absorption of elemental mercury is negligible. It is inhalation that is most concerning with elemental mercury.
Except eating paint chips with lead made a lot of kids dumb. Lead based paint held up awesome, but it was banned due to injection. Not inhalation. Even now, 40+ years later it’s still the leading cause of lead poisoning in children.
I mean… we’re talking about mercury here, not lead.
Oh, fuck me. Lol. I commented last night and then responded back today and in between my mind totally flipped to thinking it was about lead.