Posted on 04/27/2007 5:44:43 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
Junk Science: Light Bulb Lunacy
Thursday , April 26, 2007 By Steven Milloy
How much money does it take to screw in a compact fluorescent lightbulb? About $4.28 for the bulb and labor — unless you break the bulb. Then you, like Brandy Bridges of Ellsworth, Maine, could be looking at a cost of about $2,004.28, which doesn’t include the costs of frayed nerves and risks to health.
Sound crazy? Perhaps no more than the stampede to ban the incandescent light bulb in favor of compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) — a move already either adopted or being considered in California, Canada, the European Union and Australia.
According to an April 12 article in The Ellsworth American, Bridges had the misfortune of breaking a CFL during installation in her daughter’s bedroom: It dropped and shattered on the carpeted floor.
Aware that CFLs contain potentially hazardous substances, Bridges called her local Home Depot for advice. The store told her that the CFL contained mercury and that she should call the Poison Control hotline, which in turn directed her to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.
The DEP sent a specialist to Bridges’ house to test for mercury contamination. The specialist found mercury levels in the bedroom in excess of six times the state’s “safe” level for mercury contamination of 300 billionths of a gram per cubic meter.
The DEP specialist recommended that Bridges call an environmental cleanup firm, which reportedly gave her a “low-ball” estimate of $2,000 to clean up the room. The room then was sealed off with plastic and Bridges began “gathering finances” to pay for the $2,000 cleaning. Reportedly, her insurance company wouldn’t cover the cleanup costs because mercury is a pollutant.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
If it dropped and shattered on a carpeted floor, she must have some seriously high ceilings.
The amount of mercury in a CF lighbulb is quite small. She should have just opened the windows and run a fan. The subtitle of this article should have been “how can I spend the most possible money on next to nothing?”
That would appear likely. "If you've been injured in a fluorescent light bulb accident, call 1-800-screw."
A misfortune turned into a disaster with the help of government.
This is all entirely unnecessary as led and other lighting technologies are poised to make incandescent and compact fluorescent lights obsolete. Liberals just want to be seen as leading the parade.
It must have. We installed the covered ones...but more for looks than safety. At least they are not like the old florescent tubes!
While running a vacuum equipped with a HEPA filter (which most have these days). If they were ^really^ concerned about the Mercury, they could have covered the spot with Gold Bond (tm) powder (Mercury adsorbs to Zinc) and then vacuumed the area.
It’s my understanding that metallic mercury is actually harmless. Mercury compounds, e.g.; mercury-chloride are highly toxic, otoh. As long as she doesn’t scrub her daughter’s room with Clorox, she should be ok.
My own experiences with these CFLs have drive my wife and I back to incandescent bulbs. Not only did they not last as long as the average incandescent bulb, we had experiences with them actually starting to smolder in the socket when they died.
If legislators with too much time on their hands and not enough to do decide to mandate a requirement that bans incandescent bulbs, I will be buying a boat load of them before they disappear from the market. This is another one of those Law of Unintended Consequences things where an increase in home fires due to these bulbs and the numbers of environmental health issues related to them breaking will be the reward for “feel-good” laws that lack good science.
Plus, if one of these bulbs breaking in a home creates an environmental health hazard, what will the landfills be like with hundreds of thousands of them thrown out? How much environmental damage will we leave behind for our descendants to clean up?
Inquiring minds . . . . . . .
Nice thing about environmental law is that liability is "joint and several", meaning any entity responsible for any portion of the cost can be held liable for the entire cost. So basically, dump HomeDepot, 'cause in five years they're gonna be looking at an eleven figure lawsuit brought by the next John Edwards.
Just what we need. Another government mandated ban on something.Where would all us kiddies be without the govenment telling us how to live ???
I use them to reduce the electric bill. Their price has declined recently.
They shouldn’t be forcing people to use the bulbs.
I use some in my home because they use less watts and I figure that will let someone else use those watts and save me a few dollars a month, too.
As you may know the envirowackos aren’t cooperating with building new power plans, so it might be good to stretch the watts we got left.
Government, butt out please.
Thanks for posting. Very interesting. Home Depot gave away a million of these last Sunday.
In light of this article, when a disaster occurs they also sell the duct tape and plastic to seal off your room. If multiple free light bulbs break in homes appraised at less than $10,000 they will also sell you 2 x 4’s, plywood, hammer, nails, concrete, windows and doors.
If you live in an old small trailer or a one room apartment...RUN.
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