To provide a simple apparatus for carrying out a primary treatment of waste fluorescent tubes at a low cost whereby waste fluorescent tubes are crushed and mercury vapor enclosed therein is removed.

The apparatus for treating waste fluorescent tubes includes a crushing chamber for crushing waste fluorescent tubes, a dust collecting chamber for sucking air present in the crushing chamber, and a mercury recovery tank for catching mercury from the air contaminated with mercury present in the dust collecting chamber. The crushing chamber is equipped with a feed port for feeding waste fluorescent tubes thereinto, a forcibly rotated rotary shaft with a plurality of crushing blades attached thereto disposed below the feed port, and a recovery box for recovering the crushed debris disposed below the crushing blades, which crushing chamber is a sealed box connected to the dust collecting chamber by a suction duct. The dust collecting chamber is a sealed box as well and causes an aspirator to suck the inner air via a second suction duct and collects dust floating in sucked wind into its collection box, and sends the separated air to the mercury recovery tank via a discharge duct. The mercury recovery tank is a tank that stores a mercury-catching liquid for catching the mercury out of the air contaminated with mercury vapor sent from the dust collecting chamber.