I broke a CFL bulb :/

[greenhouse]

I dropped a CFL bulb and it shattered all over the day care area. They say not to throw these away due to mercury content, so I'm freaking out that there is mercury all over the floor now!! It's a wood floor and I used cleaner and paper towel to wipe it down. What should I do, and I freaking too much?

[bice99]

http://epa.gov/cfl/cflcleanup.html

[SilverSabre25]

What should I do?

Use incandescent bulbs.

Seriously though, I do NOT use CFL's for that reason.

And, they were burning out waaaay too fast. Ridiculous. Hate 'em.

[Breezy]

There is only about 4-5 mg of mercury. The reason they can't be thrown out though is because a it would end up adding up of a lot of those bulbs were in the landfill.

According to snopes.com:

Ventilate the room before clean up
Keep all pets and people leave the room.
Open a window and leave the room for 15 mins or more.
Shut off central heating or AC

Wipe area clean and then put what you used to clean it up in a plastic bag
Immediately put it all outside in yiour trash and wash your hands.

Next several times you vacuum or clean in there ventilate the room.

[greenhouse]

http://epa.gov/cfl/cflcleanup.html

thanks a million, the first thing I did was lock up the kids in a different safe room. I'm switching to regular bulbs. this is the 3 rd one I've broken! I'm too klutzy.

[countrymom]

Use incandescent bulbs.

Seriously though, I do NOT use CFL's for that reason.

And, they were burning out waaaay too fast. Ridiculous. Hate 'em.

I hate them. And we too noticed that they would burn out faster than regular light bulbs. But when we heard that there was mercury in it, I got rid of them all. Also, they had at one point a problem with them starting fires too.