What can 5 grams of Mercury do to a person?

Question

Reason why I ask is because this is the same amount found in the incandescent light bulbs that the US government is shoving onto the people.

What will it do to our landfills and drinking water?

Answer 1

poision them. cause a disease.

Answer 2

It depends on how much part per million one is exposed to.  Obviously, if someone was to come in contact with it straight, it would be hazardous, but if it is mixed with something, like water, and ppm is low, there will be no ill effects.  In fact, mercury is naturally present in most drinking water.

Answer 3

It would pollute them

Answer 4

First let me say I am NOT a tree hugging environmentalist, I am a chemist and staunch conservative.  There are several problems with your question:

First off, the government is pushing compact fluorescent lights (CFLs), not incandescent lights.

CFLs do have a small amount, 1-5 milligrams of mercury in them (not 5 grams!) as do ALL fluorescent light bulbs.  

Keep in mind that a very large portion of the electricity generated in the world involves burning coal.  Coal has, guess what, mercury in it!  If you look at the the amount of mercury released into the environment from burning extra coal to power less efficient incandescent light bulbs, you actually release LESS mercury with the CFLs even if you just toss them into the landfill.

Polluting ourselves with mercury is certainly not a good thing but all things considered, there are much larger issues you can get upset about than CFLs,

I don't know why Rush Limbaugh, etc. have such a hangup with CFLs.  They save huge amounts of energy compared with incandescent lights and that saves me $$ and decreases our dependence on foreign sources of energy which makes me :-))

Answer 5

r.i.p.

Answer 6

Mercury is rising........................!

Answer 7

measure a persons tempeture