Children's Health Protection Things are Heating Up with Mercury
in Thermometers Thermometers are very useful when you are sick
and need to know your temperature. However, mercury thermometers
can cause problems if they break. Just because your mercury
thermometer hasn’t broken doesn’t mean it never will. Your
mercury thermometer has to be shaken down before you can use it
to take your temperature. The thermometer is often broken during
this process. If mercury spills from a thermometer and is not
cleaned up properly, it can be dangerous. It can evaporate into
the air, causing toxic fumes in the air that you breathe. If the
thermometer breaks in the sink, mercury can even spill down the
drain and get into the water system and contaminate nearby
ponds, lakes, or rivers, and poison the fish. Mercury
thermometers should be replaced with non-mercury ones. Types of
non-mercury thermometers include: digital electronic
thermometers, glass alcohol thermometers, and glass gallium-
indiumtin thermometers. These types of