How to deal with broken compact fluorescent (and its mercury) without breaking the bank?
The $3000 cleanup was never a thing.  It's an urban myth created from a political slander.  The goal of the slander was to resist CFLs at any cost, both to resist government regulation generally, and efficiency due to its association with climate change.  This also tied into 50 years of activism to reduce mercury in the environment.  The fact is, if the mercury in a broken CFL were any danger, or any problem in the waste stream, they would never have gotten government or UL approval in the first place.

So this was not a surprise; the mercury "problem" was contemplated and resolved long before it became a spiral shaped political football.   EPA and various state DEQ's have collectively rolled their eyes and said "allriiiight... Since you insisted on bringing this up, here are some best practices for cleaning up a CFL" and they involve stuff like mopping it up with the sticky side of duct tape.  

You would be best following that advice.  

(if you called enough remediation companies, eventually someone would take your $3000, but don't.) 

If CFL recycling facilities exist at a nearby city or big box store, use them.  

Otherwise just put it in the normal waste stream, not commingled or encased with recyclables. Don't put in a steel can.  You may not be aware of it, but they don't just tip the truck at the dump anymore, now it goes through a complicated screening to find recyclables. Some of it is automatic (magnets to pull out steel, magnetic-field tricks to flip out nonferrous metals etc.) and and hand inspection for bundles of newspaper and the like.   

Using a steel can as a jacket for something nasty will only get the nasty thing into the steel recycling stream.