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Mercury Thermometer Exchange
| Saint Alphonsus has partnered with the Ada County and Boise City Household Hazardous Material Collection Program to provide a free digital thermometer in exchange for fever thermometers containing mercury. Saint Alphonsus purchased digital thermometers that Ada County residents can receive in exchange for their old mercury filled fever thermometers. |
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Ada County residents can take their mercury filled fever thermometers to one of nine locations where it will be exchanged for a digital thermometer. There is a limit of one per household. |
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This link takes you to a .pdf file detailing the locations
and dates of the collection sites. |
Mercury is a metal toxic to humans wildlife and the environment. During the year 2000, nearly 17 tons of mercury from thermometers alone entered municipal waste streams nationwide.
For more information about the Mercury Thermometer Exchange Program, Ada County residents can call the Ada County Solid Waste Management Department at (208) 577-4725; the Boise City Public Works Department - Environmental Division at (208) 384-3901; or the Ada County Household Hazardous Material Collection Facility at (208) 577-4736 (Wednesday through Saturday) or e-mail: kwall@adaweb.net
MERCURY FACTS
- Mercury is a naturally occurring element that can be found in its free state or in ores.
- Mercury can exist as a solid, liquid or vapor.
- A typical mercury thermometer contains 0.5 to 1.0 gram of mercury.
- Mercury is acutely and chronically toxic at levels of parts per million and parts per billion, respectively, if there is continuous intake.
- During 1998, poison control centers fielded 18,000 calls from people who had broken a mercury fever thermometer in their home.
- An estimated 60,000 children born in the U.S. each year may have neurological problems because of exposure to methyl mercury from their mothers eating contaminated seafood during pregnancy.
- Mercury deposited on water bodies is converted by bacteria into an organic form called methyl mercury. It is methyl mercury that people ingest when they eat contaminated fish. Methyl mercury accumulates in the muscle tissue of the organism that ingests it.
- Mercury contamination is responsible for fish consumption advisories in 40 states including Idaho and Oregon.
- The Snake River along the Oregon border and Brownlee Reservoir have fish consumption advisories due to levels of mercury found in fish from those water bodies. The average level of mercury found in fish from the river and reservoir is .41 parts per million. Advisories are posted when the mercury level in fish tissue exceeds .35 ppm.
- Cooking does not eliminate mercury.
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