DARTMOUTH-HITCHCOCK MEDICIAL CENTER
MERCURY THERMOMETER SWAP

April 22, 1999

On Earth Day, April 22nd, DHMC hosted a STAFF mercury thermometer swap, summary below:

Staff were encouraged to bring in as many mercury thermometers as they had - for one digital per family.

Planning time: 3-4 weeks (there are many to thank that enabled us to pull this off so fast - list below). The event was held from 11-4 with 3rd-shift and weekend shift collections in the Housekeeping office.

First Step: Get money! We asked our waste haulers for funding for the digital thermometers- and Wheelabrator/Waste Management came up with $1000 -- fast. Other haulers are interested in doing an event in the future but needed a bit more time. DHMC funded the other half as a "community health initiative."

Purchase Digitals: Polymedica in CO - they are cheaper than what our pharmacy pays for them.
PolyMedica Healthcare Inc
720 Corporate Circle
Golden CO 80401
303/271-0163

We purchased 550 digitals for about $2000. The hard cases were imprinted for $35 - very slick!

Publicity: in-house newsletters, dining room and staff lounge table tents, e-mail announcements to supervisors, "recycling coordinators", safety liasons, hazmat coordinators (300+ contacts), and fliers. Many people said that they were shocked into participating because we included "The Problem with Mercury" information on the fliers and were stunned at the potential harm from a single mercury thermometer.

Worked with Public Affairs to do outside media-- radio, TV, etc.

Set up Speakers: we organized a 30-40 minute presentation including a DHMC pediatrician, guy form NHDES on what NH is doing, head of Dartmouth College EHS responsible for mercury issues and round-ups at Dartmouth, and Bill Ravanesi - HCWH speaker extraordinaire.

OUTCOME: We have collected hundreds of mercury thermometers from almost 550 families.

Great Opportunity to provide other sources of mercury in the home, fish advisory information, the problem with mercury, local household hazardous waste collections, why healthcare is doing this, etc.

What worked well: We had lots of great information - people were very receptive. It was a great community event. The "Healthy Work/Healthy Home" message is a great one - as is "Making Medicine Mercury Free." I used these extensively. And of course, we collected a bunch of thermometers.

What didn't work so well: have food if you expect people to stick around, particularly for the speakers. We ended up not actually having the reception because we didn't have a "crowd." We were not able to provide food for 2 reasons: money and the fact that we held the event in the main entrance, where food is not allowed. Administration was very supportive but things like this usually don't happen this fast and I think think they were skeptical. Beth Israel had a lot of success with vendors, t-shirts, etc -- we didn't have time but... next time.

Disposal Information - we are sending these to Global Recycling in MA. We haven't sent them yet so if you're interested in final disposal costs, let me know. DHMC was planning on picking up the cost of disposal as part of our HW budget (that was going to be the contribution before we purchased the digitals as well). Make sure that folks collecting the mercury thermometers know how to properly answer questions about how the mercury is treated: roast & retort process and distillation.

Mucho, mucho gracias go to Health Care Without Harm’s Bill Ravanesi who traveled north for the event, prepared a great speech and didn't get to use it. A huge thanks goes to Cecelia for jumping through multiple hoops to get us our Making Medicine Mercury Free plague before everyone else -- and it is beautiful. April 22nd was "bring your daughters to work day" so I brought mine and put them to work collecting thermometers and data - with only a minimum of squawking which I am also thankful.

Bottom line - There are lots of ways to put on an thermometer swap. It's not tremendously labor intensive and the community is receptive.

Laura.F.Brannen@Hitchcock.ORG