Cleaning up a broken bulb

The amount of mercury in a low energy bulb is between 1.2 to 4 milligrams even though the amount is very small, you should still follow the following guidelines given, by the Health Protection agency, to safely remove the broken bulb.

Preparation

Vacate the room and keep children and pets out of the affected area. Shut off central air conditioning system, if you have one.

Ventilate the room by opening the windows for at least 15 minutes before clean up.

Do not use a vacuum cleaner, but clean up using rubber gloves and aim to avoid creating and inhaling airborne dust as much as possible.

Cleaning up

On hard surfaces sweep up all particles and glass fragments with stiff cardboard and place everything, including the cardboard, in a plastic bag. Wipe the area with a damp cloth and then add that to the bag. Household cleaning products should be avoided during clean up despite the very small amount of mercury involved.

On soft furnishings and carpets, do not use a damp cloth, just sticky tape to pick up small residual CFL pieces or powder from soft furnishings and then add that to the bag.

Disposing of the bulb

The plastic bag should be reasonably sturdy and needs to be sealed, but it does not need to be air tight. The sealed plastic bag should be double-bagged to minimise cuts from broken glass.

The bag with all broken pieces and cleaning items should then be taken to your local council recycling centre, where you will find a special section for WEEE.