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Mercury in Buildings
This HTML program was made especially for construction and demolition contractors and owners and managers of buildings to
make them aware of the problem of mercury in buildings and to provide information on how to solve this problem. This page
should also be useful to architects, who can use it when designing new construction to eliminate unnecessary uses of mercury,
and anyone who is concerned about mercury and wishes to identify and remove mercury from homes and the work place. In addition,
state and local government agencies should use this page to help with outreach to the construction and demolition industry,
and to help with programs to address mercury in buildings more generally, for instance through the development of programs to
collect household hazardous waste and to remove mercury from appliances. Keeping mercury-containing devices out of buildings,
and handling the mercury that has already been put into buildings safely and without damaging the environment, requires the
participation of building owners, businesses that design, construct and demolish buildings, and government.
Mercury is highly toxic. Liquid mercury is present in many devices, such as thermostats, that are found in buildings. When liquid
mercury is exposed to air, harmful, invisible vapors are emitted. Spilling even a small amount of mercury can threaten the health
of anyone who is present, and lead to an expensive cleanup. Moreover, when mercury gets into the environment, it concentrates in
fish in a highly toxic organic form. Eating contaminated fish damages the neurological development of children, and especially of
fetuses exposed when their mothers eat fish. It also can cause kidney damage.
It is easy to reduce the amount of mercury released into the environment and to protect yourself from mercury exposure. This program
is designed to take you through the steps to reduce the amount of mercury in buildings. We will explain everything from locating the
devices and sources of mercury to the handling, transportation and recycling of mercury and mercury components.
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| Audiences: environmental
professionals, hospitals, labotatories, small businesses, concerned
citizens |
View
MERCURY IN BUILDINGS online, or mercbuild.exe
self-extracting zipfile (1 Mb)
-OR-
mercbuild.zip zipfile (986 Kb)
The second option is primarily for Macintosh users.
Installation:
To install, copy the zipfile (mercbuild.exe or mercbuild.zip) into a
subdirectory on your hard disk, then double-click it to uncompress
and install
the program.
You can start the program by opening
your Web browser and aiming it at C:\Mercury in Buildings\mercbuild\src\title.htm
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- Created, 2002 by:
From Purdue University: A. Shane
A. Ferguson, Matt Smith, Megan Sullivan, Lindsay Keazer, Steven Lyon, Susan Childress;
From USEPA:
Alexis Cain, Karen Reshkin, Glynis Zywicki of USEPA.
- Size: 1 MB uncompressed, 986 Kb compressed
- Operating system: HTML
- Other requirements: Any computer with a Web browser.
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