How do you identify if an old plastic flip has PVC in it or not?

You'll have an easier time getting mercury than carbon tetrachloride at this point. They're both toxic and persistent in the environment, but carbon tet is also a potent greenhouse gas and ozone destroyer.

Mainly as a result of this book, I ordered a small bottle of carbon tet through my school when I was in fifth grade. They sent a gallon jug by mistake. That thing was heavy. We baby-sat it for years, and I finally turned it in to the hazmat collection window in my university's chemistry department. I still regret that occasionally -- not that I miss the liability of having the stuff on hand, but that I'd likely never be able to get more even if I wanted to.

Didn't order any mercury at that time, because it was too expensive for a fifth-grade budget. I won't comment on any much-later orders of multiple pounds from eBay before they blocked sales of the stuff.

 

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I use cardboard 2x2 but in my experience you want very not flexible ones

 

I think I have a little vial with a few mL out in the garage, next to my Arsenic and Strontium...

 

Each ml weighs almost half an ounce. That's why the science catalogs always listed it by weight, not volume.

No arsenic here, and no elemental strontium. Probably some strontium nitrate for making red flares. Strontium for red, calcium for orange, sodium for yellow, barium for green, copper and chlorine donors for blue...