I had a 4" bayonet type in a socket. It just burned out. There are no warning on the package, but my wife thinks they are dangerous. 5mg Hg. 60W Westinghouse soft light, 2 yr. guarantee. She worried if it had broken. All sorts of horrible things according to Snopes.
I'll second that...
In a DISCHARGE lamp of some sort, sure. But a halogen is essentially nothing but a "fancied up" incandescent that runs hotter than standard so it can rebuild its filament instead of using it to silver the inside of the bulb.
Beyond "naturally occurring trace amounts" of Hg (which might be part of the components simply because nobody bothered to go to the effort of removing it from the raw materials) what's a halogen bulb need ANY quantity of mercury for?
I can't see a halogen bulb being anything but a purely physical danger due to the sharp edges typically found on broken glass. I can think of no chemical hazard at all.
Bollocks.
Graham
The halogen itself is probably bad for you. But there's not much of it, it'll have escaped once the bulb is broken, and it's not an accumulating poison like mercury or lead. I have a hard time coming up with a scenario in which it would be an actual danger.
I assume the warnings about the dangers of broken bulbs have to do with the use of mercury and beryllium (both pretty toxic) in fluorescents.
Thing is, the OP mentions the marking "5 mg Hg" on the broken bulb. Maybe it isn't actually a halogen?
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