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• Find Mercury in Your School

• Inquire About Lab Cleanouts

• Collect Mercury in Your Home and School

• Use Your Local Hazardous Waste Program

• Participate in Environmental Public Health Events

• Organize Projects to Raise Awareness

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:

• Washington State School Assessment Form

• EPA Mercury Assessment Checklist for Schools  

• University of Wisconsin School Assessment Form

• Where is Mercury in Schools? UW Extension

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 web site 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.