Quote:
Originally Posted by Tishabet
When my Grandfather passed away about 4 years ago, we decided to move my Grandmother in with my parents and sell the grandparents' house.
Their basement was always filled with all sorts of cool stuff (my Grandfather owned and operated a dirt racetrack in the 40's and 50's, and owned an operated a gas station for about 45 years) and I was helping my parents go through it all. In the corner there was a large tin (bit bigger than a detergent bucket) that had once held lard. Inside the bin were two pairs of new, unworn WWII era combat boots and a vessel containing about two gallons of mercury.
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For a minute I thought we were related! but you have a bigger story...
We cleaned up my grand-uncle's basement after his death a few years ago. Both he and his wife had been petroleum engineers for decades, and had amassed quite a collection of...stuff...
He had a brown glass reagent bottle (musta been 500ml) of mercury (so your 2 gallons trumps me
)
Contacted the local university for disposal, they said it was more than they had on the entire campus, and wouldn't even know where to begin.
We ended up having SafetyKleen come and do the basement. between the mercury, old petroleum chemicals, and some tins of powdered (almost dust) gold and silver (woohoo for inhaled heavy metals!) it was a freaking environmental emergency.