Screwed up the other day

So the other day I was cutting up an old sign which contained fluorescent lights when I made a mistake. I reached inside and moved some wires aside so they wouldn't get caught in the sawzall blade and continued cutting. I later found that there was black pcb containing oil all over the wires I grabbed. There is a small amount on my sawzall, pry bar and wire cutters. I tossed my cut resistant gloves which were thankfully coated in nitrile which is one of the substances which pcb does not penetrate. I let the property manager know about the leaking ballast and informed him I would no longer work on the sign. Does anybody have advice on what I should do with my tools?

You should invest in a chemical respirator if you inhale that stuff constantly.

The yards in my area do not take any pre ban ballasts, transformers or capacitors that contain pcb. I'm going to contact the local sanitation department to find out how I should dispose of things like this. I was thinking maybe I could put on some heavy nitrile gloves and wipe down my tools with some Purple power degreaser over a container of kitty litter several times.

This incident has got me concerned about the fluorescent lights in my basement. I don't want that crap in my house if this could be a future problem.

I'm not sure about where you live, but the transfer station near me has stations that accept hazardous material like this.

For cleanup water doesn't work well. It is not water soluble. I have read approved solvents for it are kerosene, diesel fuel, and mineral oil. Don't heat or burn anything to decontaminate as this will release other bad things such as dioxins.

I wouldn't worry about this too much though. Your exposure is little to none.

The purple power should help clean off my saw, it does miracles on motor oil and several other petroleum products which stain my garage floor.

I wouldn't mess with these things for the copper content. My father was a chemistry major in college and he told me that PCB iss measured in particles per million when determining hazardous concentrations in water samples.

The cost of health care for lymphoma will easily out weigh any profits made from these old ballasts. I'm just going to put these guys into a trash can with kitty litter and take it to the transfer station when I go on my next scrap run. They can keep the trash can for all i care.