Told Ya So.......

[Rob Markoff]

In my lighting classes I have always lamented the fact that with the new push to eliminate incandescent lightbulbs, consumers are switching to CFL lamps that contain mercury.

And, knowing human behavior, I suggested that consumers will go the way of least resistance and throw them in to the trash without recycling. This means they will end up in landfills and that eventually the mercury will reach the water tables.

New statistics show that 1/4 of all new lightbulb sales are now CFL lamps and each contain up to 5 milligrams of mercury. Statistics also show that only 2% of residential consumers and 1/3 of businesses recycle them. The executive director of the Association of Lighting and Mercury Recyclers says, "If the recycling rate remains as abysmally low as it is, then there will certainly be more mercury released in to the environment. Until the public really has some kind of convenient way to take them back it's going to be an issue."

According to a study in the Journal of Air and Waste Management Association, as a result of discarded fluorescent lights, US landfills release into the atmosphere and in stormwater runoff upwards of 4 tons of mercury annually.

NO FEDERAL LAW MANDATES RECYCLING yet the new laws eliminating the sale of incandescent lamps is directly responsible for the increase in CFL purchases. Several states, including California do require florescent recycling for households and businesses although the Air and Waste Management Association thinks compliance is low due to lack of convenient drop-off locations.

Here's the latest "spin" from the California Energy Commission- Even with mercury worries about CFL's, they still ultimately lead to 40 percent less mercury emissions per bulb than incandescent lights. Although the old-style (incandescent) contain no mercury, they're often powered by coal-fired electricity plans - which release mercury as a pollutant.

Damned if we do, damned if we don't.

 

[Framar]

I do not throw my dead CFLs into the trash, I am just accumulating them in a large box for the day that will come when I will be able to return them to the store where they were sold. Like rechargeable batteries.

I may have to wait forever with my even largerr box of Brita filters, however - but even there I hear movement on the recycling front.

Someday.

Someday.

 

[Jerry Ervin]

I'm covered.

I can get non-mercury bulbs from SC and my two local power plants are Nuclear and the other has converted from coal to Natural Gas fired.

The Chinese can keep their bulbs.

 

[Baer Charlton]

Probably the most interesting thing about the mercury is that it is 1/100th the
size of a BB, and it was intended that when the CFL is used in an "upright"
position such as a table lamp, the mercury will migrate to the base and act as
a heat sink for the actuators, therefore extending the life of the bulb well past
its advertised 10,000 hours.

If you put the light in such a socket, and after an hour kind of jiggle the
fixture, thereby "coating" the interior of the base, you can take the bulb and
use it in a ceiling fixture for that extended time. We have three that I installed
in 1997 that I did that to, and they are well past that mark.

But because the industry and the government didn't want to publicize the
mercury content.... it's not on the label... so people complain that the bulbs
don't have that kind of life.......

Soooo there are now two without mercury, and more on the way, until the
mercury is gone. To bad.... now we will have CFLs that only last for 3,000-
5,000 hours.

The local HD used to take them back.... but then they finally admitted that
they just threw them in the general compacter along with bad paint, tube
florescent, pool cleaners, plumbing chemicals, broken fertilizer bags . . .

Now you call Metro, and they say you have to put them in a zip-lock, which
goes in a zip-lock... then bring it to them.... cost for toxic disposal $35. Yup,
I'll be right down.

 

[Rebecca]

It is so hard to know what to do! Even if one returns the mercury containing bulbs to proper recycling, who knows were it goes from there?

There is a book and website/blog that may help one make those hard decisions. http://howbadarebananas.posterous.com/ I'm sure it is not all encompassing, but it is a start.

 

[Kirstie]

This problem won't be solved until cities are willing to pick up CFLs at curbside. Recycling rates in San Francisco and in various other Northern California cities that offer (or require) recycling for curbside pick up of paper, cans, bottles, plastics, and green waste have much higher recycling participation than those that don't. Our city picks up all of these recyclables but does not pick up CFLs, batteries, motor oil, and more. You have to take those to a recycling center and often you have to search one out. To have curbside recycling of more and more items, the public will have to pay for it. The city where we live now has a 10.25% sales tax, the highest in Northern California, and we still pay separately for recycling. No easy answers.