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What You Can Do
There
are a number of ways that school administrators, teachers, parents,
students, or members of the public can help remove mercury from schools
and participate in mercury education projects. Educating the
staff and the school community about tangible steps they can take is
our goal. |
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Find Mercury in Your
School:
One of the first steps you can take is to assess how much
mercury is in your school and where it is located.
Tracking and measuring the mercury or mercury products in
a school will make it easier to completely
rid the school of as much mercury as possible. An
accurate assessment will help identify where to seek
alternatives for mercury products.
DOH has adapted a School Mercury Assessment Form that
can be completed by school district personnel or teachers as part of a classroom activity. A
comprehensive environmental, health, and safety assessment
tool for schools is also available from the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). These and other
resources are below.
Resources to help conduct a mercury audit in you
school:
Inquire About Lab
Cleanouts:
Contact the Solid Waste and Financial Assistance Program at the
Washington Department of Ecology to get information on
getting elemental mercury and mercury compounds out of school
labs. (360) 407-6900.
 Collect
Mercury in Your Home and School:
Keep your hazardous waste safe and contained until it can be
properly disposed. Consider storing old batteries in a plastic
tub or old coffee tin, save your fluorescent light bulbs and
other mercury-containing products in a plastic “mercury bucket”
with a lid. A good package for fluorescent tubes is a cardboard
wrapping paper tube. Save paint in an old plastic tub. Just as
you would set up a recycling or garbage center in your garage or
shed, place your hazardous waste collection system next to it as
a visual reminder to safely dispose of your mercury containing
items and other hazardous waste.
Use Your Local
Hazardous Waste Program:
Take your
hazardous waste bin to your local household hazardous waste facility! Call
Ecology’s 1-800-RECYCLE line for information, visit the
Ecology Hazardous Waste Service Providers, or log onto Earth911’s
website at
www.earth911.org
to find local facilities and a list of the items they accept.
 Participate in Environmental or Public Health Events:
Earth Day: Earth Day is
held annually on April 22. Special events and activities
to help the environment are held every year on or around Earth
Day. Locate an Earth
Day
event in your community by browsing the
Earth Day Network, the main Web site for Earth Day across
the world. Consider hosting a mercury-reduction project for
Earth Day!
Environmental Education Week:
Environmental Education Week is held annually in April. Visit National
Environmental Education & Training Foundation's
Environmental
Education Week Web page for additional information.
Organize a Project in
Your School or Community
Consider organizing a community or school activity to raise
public awareness on the dangers of mercury, promote the proper
disposal of mercury-containing products, and encourage the
reduction in use of mercury-containing products. Outreach
projects may include:
Poster Contest:
Consider holding a poster contest in your local school or
community. The Illinois Environmental Protection
Agency’s Environmental Education Program hosts a popular
annual pollution-prevention-themed “Poster, Poetry, and Prose”
contest for Illinois State's 5th and 6th graders.
Illinois Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental
Education Program.
Research Environmental Health Topics
and Share Your Knowledge:
Talk to others about participating in
The Youth Network
for Healthy Communities (YNHC), a videoconference
project of the University of Washington’s Center for
Ecogenetics and Environmental Health. The project is designed
to give middle and high school teachers across Washington
State the opportunity to work with students on environmental
health issues in their local communities. The students
prepare projects, research, and share their findings with
their peers and with environmental health experts at the
University of Washington via the statewide K20 videoconference
network.
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