Michigan State University sells deadly toxic waste to the public on its surplus website

Wednesday, October 30, 2013 by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...) Tags: deadly toxic waste, Michigan State University, surplus laboratory equipment

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(NaturalNews) An exclusive Natural News investigation reveals that Michigan State University (MSU) is eliminating toxic waste / deadly environmental toxins by selling them to the public as "surplus" materials. At least one of these materials can be weaponized by terrorists and used to poison municipal water supplies and cause widespread neurological damage to the population.

Using nothing more than a credit card on the MSU surplus website (MSUsurplusStore.com), I was able to accidentally purchase an enormous quantity of liquid mercury inside a "surplus" polarographic analyzer that MSU sold me for a mere $100.

The unit was packaged in bubble wrap and styrofoam peanuts, then placed in a cardboard box. It contained absolutely no warnings about hazardous materials as is required by carriers such as UPS and the USPS. There was no MSDS in the box and no indication whatsoever that the equipment should be kept in an upward orientation to prevent mercury from spilling out. No doubt the people who also packaged this laboratory equipment at MSU were also exposed to mercury during the packaging process (is that what undergrads are for?).

When I received the unit, it was upside down and the bubble wrap was inundated with mercury. No doubt mercury also escaped the cardboard box during shipment, possibly causing neurological damage to the UPS workers who handled the box.

Furthermore, MSU failed to warn me that the shipment contained a highly toxic hazardous substance. There was no indication whatsoever that the device contained a very large quantity of mercury.

Elemental mercury can be weaponized into an aerosol, a vapor, or a deadly nerve agent

What's especially shocking in all this is that a terrorist using just a little bit of chemistry knowledge could "weaponize" this elemental mercury and turn it into far more deadly mercury compounds which could then be deployed against a population through the water supply, a building HVAC intake system or other methods that I need not describe.

For example, terrorists could turn elemental mercury into dimethylmercury, a deadly neurotoxin that just happens to be a colorless liquid with a slightly sweet (deadly) smell. Dimethylmercury is toxic to humans at just 0.1mL (one-tenth of one milliliter). It also passes right through PVC, latex, neoprene and other protective gear, going right into the skin and causing widespread neurological damage.

Yes, it's true that people can acquire very small amounts of mercury in old thermometers and HVAC controllers, but those are tiny fractions of the amount of mercury that MSU shipped to me in just one laboratory instrument. Anyone who wanted to accumulate vast quantities of mercury would be enabled by MSU's surplus store practices which apparently have no safety controls or hazardous materials guidelines whatsoever.

Here's a screen shot of the instrument as offered to the public on the Michigan State University website:

(full story continues below)

Michigan State University getting rid of deadly hazardous waste by selling it to the public and calling it "recycling"

What's really going on is that MSU has found a clever way to dispose of its toxic waste materials. It simply sells them off to the public on its surplus website while calling it a "recycling" program. The cardboard boxes actually come with a sticker showing a green recycling symbol. Apparently no one at MSU seems to understand that shipping people vast quantities of liquid mercury is not a "green" practice."

Click here to see more laboratory equipment being sold by MSU, much of which no doubt contains high levels of toxic elements that could be exploited by terrorists to poison municipal water supplies or kill hundreds or thousands of people at a time in office buildings.

Here's an image of the mercury droplets found in the bubble wrap:



And here's an image of the massive amount of mercury I received in a scientific instrument:



In this shipment from MSU, I received enough toxic mercury from MSU to easily kill hundreds of people and possibly thousands. This is enough mercury to cause alarming levels of exposure to possibly as many as one million people and contaminate tens of millions of gallons of lakes, ponds or municipal water supplies.

"It takes only a tiny amount to do serious damage: One-seventieth of a teaspoon can pollute a 20-acre lake to the point where its fish are unsafe to eat," reports the Sierra Club. Yet Michigan State University shipped me thousands of times that amount, no questions asked!

If I were an evil environmental terrorist, I could simply drop this right into the water canal providing the entire water supply to the city of Tucson, Arizona. It wouldn't even be difficult to get it into the water supply feeding Los Angeles. It would take nothing more than some heavy-duty water balloons filled with mercury and a catapult water balloon launcher.

Thankfully, I am far more interested in blowing the whistle on this dangerous university practice rather than using these substances to kill people, so I will be isolating this equipment and holding it as evidence with the hope that EPA officials may take an interest in this practice and seek to prosecute MSU for selling and shipping toxic waste materials packed in cardboard boxes and bubble rap.

Here's more mercury I found just rolling around the top of the equipment as it was shipped via UPS:



Here's a shot of the control panel of the instrument:



And here's more mercury found in the bubble wrap shipped with the instrument: