I have heard that the low energy light bulbs that I have been buying to replace my old “high” energy ones have mercury in them and so are not easily disposed of as they are hazardous waste. Is this true? If, in fact it is, why are they being so widely promoted? I must be wasting my money as I was trying to “go green”.
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Replies
Yes they do contain mercury. Consider this though, you are being twice as responsible cause now you're green and your supporting the recycling industry.
How do they get recycled?
thats not the problem, what happen if you break one on the floor.Haga su trabajo de fricken
For you, take a deep breath. For everyone else: Sweep it up and bag it. In theory the broken bulb should be disposed as hazardous waste too, but the amount of mercury is tiny, and of no consequence by itself. It's only when you accumulate a lot of the stuff that you have trouble with it.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
The mercury's not in the bulb. I think its part of the starter/ballast.
Pretty sure the mercury IS in the "bulb" -- mercury vapor helps maintain the arc inside the tube.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
Oops, I guess I just assumed it was part of the starter. That would make recycling more difficult.
That's what I've read, also - that the mercury is in the vapor.
Which means that if you break it, it's too late to do anything but ventilate the room, sweep up the pieces and throw them away.
Don
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7431198
Good article, I just sent it on to our State Rep and the local news station that has started advertising to convert over to CFL's. Our electric over here is mostly diesel generated with some home owner solar.Never fear the want of business. A man who qualifies himself well for his calling, never fails of employment.
Thomas Jefferson
3rd president of US (1743 - 1826)
The mercury isn't fully vaporized until the lamp warms up. Most is in liquid form on the insides of the envelope and on the electrodes. A neon/argon/whatever gas inside carries the current long enough to warm it up.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
There was a newspaper clipping posted here a while back (maybe someone with better search skills than I can find it) seems a lady in California (?) broke a CFL in her house, called municipal gov, who called, who called .... to find out what if anything should be done .. long story short EPA turned up in hazmat suits, seem to recall the bill was in the thousands!
like our Alberta permier said about mad cow, .. shoot, dig and shutup!
About like when there are mercury spills in schools. Close down the school for weeks, haul away all the furnishings in the room where the spill occurred, have folks in hazmat suits do the cleanup.When I was a kid we played with the stuff in our hands. If it spilled you scooped it up with a piece of paper. MAYBE sprinkle a little sulfur around to absorb the rest.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
When I was a kid we played with the stuff in our hands
Not only that, we'd scounge the alleys for bulbs to break to get a pinhead of mercury, then coat pennies to make them shiny.
eye tink duh led vapur frum meltun led an pleying wid Hg fifdy yars pist oownly affeketd mi speling.
I've got an 10' antique mirror in the entrance hall that's mercury silvered, and weeps tiny drops mercury out the bottom - I built in a little tray into the mounting bracket.
Forrest
Like others I have concerns about the mercury and disposal. I came to the conclusion that I should save the spent bulbs and hope that recycling, or whatever, facilities become readily available. Sort of like the nuclear waste plan the govt. has. Hopefully the solution will be obvious before I lose patience or my basement gets declared a toxic waste site.
Recycling is available (for a fee) just about everywhere, but you have to ask around, and it's not necessarily convenient. In our area I have to travel about 20 miles to the other side of the next town, then pay about a buck a bulb (I forget the exact price).
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
Recycling is also available by mail. Several companies offer containers to collect CFL's and mail in. It's not particularly cheap. (But I can't grasp the complaints I've heard that these companies are "in it for the money" rather than protecting the environment.) Here's a link to one: http://www.sylvania.com/Recycle/CFLandHouseholdlightBulbrecycling/
Roanoke has a recyle/hazmat day twice year on a Saturday, bring your old paint, CFLs, insecticides, etc to the Civic Centre and drop them off.City would rather pay a day of OT twice a year than deal hazardous cr*p at the dump.Ta,
Leon
Thats interesting, thanks. The place that usually takes "hazardous waste" here is about a 45 minute drive (each way) so I'm loath to take only three light bulbs and one litre of paint out there and line up on a Saturday. Like many other products I wish there was point of sale return even paying a deposit when purchasing would be fine. Tenants are often leaving paint, tires, propane tanks, airconditioners etc. behind all of which are a pain to get rid of and the locations and protocols for disposal seem to change from year to year. Oops, I'm venting. On topic, again, lets hope LED lighting becomes main stream soon. The only standard type base LED bulb that I have seen in the local big box stores is a multicolor novelty item. I'll have to check the lighting suppliers when I get some "spare time". Are LED bulbs more readily available where you are?
LED lamps are still not available at a reasonable cost.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
Thanks so much for all the replies. I think I will just suppose that I will die or they will have a special dump for them before I need to dispose of one - especially if they last as long as is hoped for.
I remember that clipping also and roughly the same amont of $$ to "remedy".
Of course you have to take into account the story originated in CA - the lady's first mistake was calling any CA governmental agency.
I am involved in a repair crew at our church which has changed many of our lights to CFL's. We have a recycling service which comes and picks up all flourescent (sp?) bulbs, compact or the old style tubes.
Jim
Never underestimate the value of a sharp pencil or good light.
Yeah, keep in mind that recycling of regular straight fluorescent lamps has been (supposedly) required for decades, and at least your larger companies are presumably doing it legally (and it's not so onerous as to make them switch away from fluorescents). They're sending the lamps somewhere.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
You have it exactly right.But it was in Maine. And she called the state epa. And they never showed up. But the recommend a private remdial company.And the remedial company said that it would be a couple of thousands.The state later backtracked (I think that they claim that she misunderstood them).Anyway there is not that much mercury in a CFL for panic. .
.
A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
I guess you take them to the recycling center. Dont know, mine still work havent had to change any yet.
The argument is that the majority of electrical power in this country is generated with mercury as a by-product. So unless you get your power from windmills, solar, or hydroelectric, the mercury from the power plants to provide the extra electricity over the life of the incandescents is less than that required to create a fluorescent lamp. That assumes, however, that your compact fluorescent lasts as long as advertised, which mine never seem to do...
Don't forget to include Nuclear power in your clean energy source.
CFLs do contain a miniscule amount of mercury, and so in theory must be disposed of as hazardous waste. However, if you get electricity from coal, the amount of extra mercury going into the atmosphere from the coal burned lighting a standard bulb would likely exceed the amount in a CFL.
(And for us the CFLs last quite a long time -- certainly several times the life of an incandescent.)
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
They save considerable greenhouse gasses and money. They also last a long time and are great in places that are hard to get to to change lamps.
They do contain mercury and should be recycled. I would take mine into work and put them with the ones my employer recycles (the company doesn't have to pay to have them recycled), except that I've never had one burn out. I have taken the old fashioned fluorescent tubes in, though.
The current issue of Consumer Reports addresses the environmental pros and cons and also gives instructions for cleaning up a broken bulb safely.
If you have silver amalgam dental fillings from the 1960's, you carried more mercury around in your mouth (3 grams) than is contained in 1000 average CFLs. Metallic mercury is not as hazardous as the crazies would like us to believe. A 3 mg "spill" is not an environmental disaster. Sweep up the glass and dust and go on with life.
One note about CFL's....I've been using them in both residential and commercial applications for probably six years. I've noticed that many of the bulbs don't come close to lasting the advertised 5000 hours that is listed on the literature that comes with the bulb. I've returned many bulbs to HD that lasted less than 100 hours. Most people don't keep their reciept because they expect the darn things to last for years, but I'd say only 50% reach the 5000 hour life cycle.
I make it a practice to tape the receipt to the packaging and throw it up on top of my shelves. I tried to get an address to return the bulbs to at HD but they didn't know and would just rather exchange them....ok by me.
Dennis
I run some CFLs 24/7 and found that some brands last twice as long as others. I haven't tried to track the life expectancy of the ones that are turned off and on. The ones that seem to last the longest of all are the primitive models with the separate ballast. These last perhaps 5 or 10X as long as the others. Too long for me to bother keeping track anyway. The problem with them, of course, is they don't suit most fixtures.
" The ones that seem to last the longest of all are the primitive models with the separate ballast. "I would not call them primitive.They are used for dedicated fixtures where only florscents can be used.They have a lot more flexability in in designin both the ballast and the bulbs compared with a CFL where they are trying to fit in the space and form factor of an edison based incandenscent blub.BTW, I have an outdoor pair of Panasonics Capsule bulbs that where installed around Sept-Oct of 2001. They are on a photo cell. So I guess that they average 12 hours day. Just noticed that one of the pair is out.That is about 20,000 hours..
.
A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
I didn't mean to disparage the "primitive" CFLs. I like them and use them extensively. They were the first type of CFL that I noticed in the marketplace ( which was why I called them primitive) and I promptly purchased several. They must have saved me atleast $2000 by now.
The problem with the screw-in CFLs is not the bulb, it's the ballast electronics. If the circuit board gets too hot, the life of the bulb is drastically reduced because the ballast fails. Some CFLs of the higher wattage (23W) will die in a few months if you install them with the base up in a sealed can.Another thing to remember is that CFLs will drop to 50% of their original brightness over time. The bulb may indeed last 5000 hours, but at the end you will only get half of the light output it was rated for originally. The same thing happens to LEDs BTW, but their lifetimes are measured in tens of thousand of hours.
I didn't know about the brightness decline, thanks. I wonder if the difference in longevity that I have noticed was not because of bulb quality but because different brands may perform better upside down. Maybe I'll see about importing some Australian CFLs (LOL). Would ballast failure still be such an issue with a bulb that runs 24/7? Couldn't they design it so that it would keep going even if parts of the ballast had cooked ? Of course, once it was turned off it would be done. BTW I was getting 1 year 24/7 from Sylvania screw in CFLs and 2 years from Phillips.
I suspect that both high temperatures and frequent on off cycles can significantly shorten their life. I have been using over 100 60W equivalent CFLs in outdoor photocell controlled fixtures. I am typically getting slightly over 5 years. I buy the cheapest ones available at the local big box. I started date marking the bulbs back when the bulbs cost $10 each and only made a couple of warranty claims. I still date mark to see what the life is but unless there was massive failures of new bulbs, I wouldn't bother at less than $1.50 each.
Check this out.........I also think waste containers may be available from Grainger
http://veoliaes-ts.com/Services/Electronics%20Recycling/Lamp%20and%20Ballast