Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/09/09
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Jim, I couldn't agree more. Be careful though, the mercury police might be lurking fully outfitted in their shiny (silvery) boots and uniforms. Kurt Ann Arbor Jim Brick wrote: > 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