I have an old friend (even older than me!) who lives in sheltered housing. It's obligatory there to use these new light bulbs and it's horrid. They give a strange greenish, eerie light, and she swears they smell peculiar, although I haven't noticed that. Also, they take a while to warm up, which IMV is a bit dangerous for elderly people going to the bathroom in the middle of the night. They can't see by the dim glow and may trip and fall. In our house we only use one traditional 60Watt bulb in the hall, and small 25Watt bulbs dotted about everywhere else. So we aren't exactly gobbling up the planet's electricity.
We used to pinch small globules of mercury from the Physics lab at school. It's fascinating stuff, and we weren't aware of its dangerous nature. We'd pop some in the pockets of our cotton gingham uniform frocks. No doubt we were contaminated with it.