I'm 69 years old, so mercury was not flagged as a toxic substance when I was a kid. We would rub it on pennies, "silver" plating them to look like dimes. Chasing little beads of mercury across the floor was a lot of fun. Frankly, it still don't believe pure mercury is really toxic, just its compounds. Today hazmat disposal is an extremely lucrative industry and therefore take the scare tactics with a grain of salt, considering the profit motive.