Protect Yourself
10 Sources of Mercury That You Can Do Something About!
By Katie Weisman, SafeMinds Environmental Committee
Mercury is dangerous. Most of us know it but few of us really have a handle on all the places it is present in modern life. Few of us know how much mercury it takes to pose a threat or how to reduce our exposure. This new ongoing series of articles will clarify these issues and help you to protect yourself, your family and our planet.
These are potential sources of mercury that you need to be aware of. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but is intended to outline key exposures for large populations.
1. Fish consumption
2. Dental amalgam
3. Vaccines
4. Fluorescent Lighting
5. E-Waste
6. Batteries
7. Thermometers and Thermostats
8. Emissions and Occupational Exposures
9. Fungicides/Disinfectants and Paints/Glues
10. Plastics, Bleach and Other Chlor-Alkali End Products
Mercury has been used in the past in many more products than it is today and with far less attention paid to its toxicity. From candles to fishing sinkers to the children’s sneakers with the “light-up” heels, mercury has been removed from many consumer products. However, you need to be aware that the old chemistry set or blood pressure gauge sitting in your grandparents’ attic may be a threat.
Ironically, considering its toxicity, mercury has had many medicinal purposes even recently. It was used directly as a “cure” for syphilis from as early as 1025 in Persia until the 20th century – despite any evidence that it cured the disease.
Mercury was also used in children’s teething powders (calomel) and caused a condition called acrodynia (pink disease) in approximately 1 in 500 exposed infants that lead to peripheral neuropathy, peeling rashes on their hands and feet, kidney damage and extreme photophobia. Mercury’s use in teething powders was not discontinued until the 1950’s when doctors finally figured out the connection.
Another common use of mercury was in Mercurochrome – the lovely reddish disinfectant that many of us remember being used on our cuts and scrapes as children. Its use has been discontinued in the United States since 1998 when the FDA changed it’s status from Generally Regarded as Safe (GRAS) to questionable, but it is still widely available in other countries.
And last, but not least, mercury in the form of thimerosal has been used and is still being used in some cases to preserve solutions that a consumer might use over and over again, such as nasal sprays and saline solution. The “sensitive eyes” formulas for contact lens wearers were designed for those people who reacted to the thimerosal in the original formulations.
As you can see, reducing your mercury exposure requires awareness. Stay tuned for the first article in our series on Fish Consumption in our next newsletter.
Mercury in toys, cameras, watches and other common household items
From the SafeMinds Environmental Committee
In November of 2008, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a web site listing thousands of common household items that contain mercury, including popular infant toys, digital cameras, watches, DVD players and camcorders.
Acknowledging the danger of mercury, both for the individual handling the product and the greater environmental toxic load, the EPA site recommends the use of mercury-free alternatives.
"The optimal way of preventing exposure to elemental mercury is to reduce the use of mercury-containing products by using alternatives whenever possible. In most cases, non-mercury alternatives exist for mercury-containing products," the web site states.
While the EPA falls short of banning mercury containing products, it provides consumers information to keep safe and do their part to decrease the overall mercury contamination of the environment. SafeMinds applauds this edict and hopes that the next logical step will be taken with a federal mandate for the use of mercury-free alternatives.
One extremely common item on the EPA's website is button-cell batteries, coin-shaped batteries that provide power to thousands of portable electronic devices, including hundreds of children's toys. Mercury from these batteries can be released to the environment during various stages of the product life cycle, but primarily during manufacturing and disposal. Because they are unregulated at a state or federal level, toys and devices containing these batteries do not have to be labeled. It is legal to dispose of them in the household trash; and they rarely are collected for recycling. Because button batteries are not targeted for recycling, almost all of this mercury presumably ends up in the municipal solid waste stream where it is either incinerated or land filled.
Toys that contain these mercury-containing batteries include "Teethable Tunes" and "Giggle Teethers," music-making teethers designed for infants to chew on. Other products include Panasonic DVD players, JVC digital cameras and Swatch watches.
Other mercury containing products flagged on the EPA's website include dental amalgams, fish, fluorescent light bulbs, thermometers and vaccines. For a complete listing, please visit the site at www.epa.gov/mercury.