Protection of Personnel, the General Public and the Environment

Mercury is toxic - that is a generally known and accepted fact. The big question was then, whether it would be feasible, given today's conditions, to start this production process again?

Before commencing work some leading German health & safety medical experts were consulted. Prof. Scheuch of the Medical School at the University of Dresden is one such health & safety expert, specialising in „working with mercury“. He wrote: „ ... that if all work-based health and safety precautions were observed, the work could be carried out without hazard to humans and environment“. The coating room was sealed using tiles on the walls and synthetic materials soldered into the flooring. The atmosphere is the room was as sterile as that of an operating theatre. The staff wore protective breathing masks and full sets of protective clothing. The clothing was changed in an anteroom. All waste materials from the production process and all work clothing articles were collected in special containers and sent to a specialist recycling company in Lübeck for disposal. Employees working with mercury were regularly subjected to medical examinations. In microelectronics and chemical industries far more hazardous substances are used. It is always important to observe correct health and safety regulations. Photo: Ronald Bonss / Momentphoto.de

Finally some examples from the 17th and 18th century which illustrate how careless handling of mercury caused extreme health problems to the employees in the factories. In the research carried out before we developed this technology, we can across many publications relating to poisoning of staff in thermometer manufacturing, dentistry and other professions in which mercury was used. The purify mercury it was placed into leather pouches and pressed out again. The pollutants remained in the pouch. After some time the leather became brittle and was no longer usable. But it could still be deployed in shoe manufacturing, as described in the 1888 book "Die Fürther Quecksilber - Spiegelbelegen und ihre Arbeiter" (Furth Mercury Coatings and the employees): „ ... the people employed to press the remaining mercury out of the pouches before the leather was deployed for other purposes..... often suffered from mercury poisoning. My investigations did not just cover those who handled the pouches, but also employees concerned with packaging materials, cobblers, etc who purchased the old mercury pouches and deployed them for other purposes. It was not abnormal to buy boots from a junk dealer and find that a mercury layer appeared on the leather. The victorious Swiss wore golden ring on their toes after the Wars of Burgundy - today's proletarians wore silver-coated boots. An alloy of lead and pewter was generally used to manufacture lead soldiers, a favourite toy in our martial times. To economise some Nuremburg and Furth manufacturers did not use pure pewter, but purchased waste pewter from mirror manufacturers, which contained varying quantities of mercury. In this way the poison was passed on to other manufacturing industries ...“