Posted on 04/29/2007 1:34:30 PM PDT by John Jorsett
How much money does it take to screw in a compact fluorescent light bulb? About US$4.28 for the bulb and labour -- unless you break the bulb. Then you, like Brandy Bridges of Ellsworth, Maine, could be looking at a cost of about US$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 favour of compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs).
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 US$2,000 to clean up the room. The room then was sealed off with plastic and Bridges began "gathering finances" to pay for the US$2,000 cleaning. Reportedly, her insurance company wouldn't cover the cleanup costs because mercury is a pollutant.
Given that the replacement of incandescent bulbs with CFLs in the average U.S. household is touted as saving as much as US$180 annually in energy costs -- and assuming that Bridges doesn't break any more CFLs -- it will take her more than 11 years to recoup the cleanup costs in the form of energy savings.
The potentially hazardous CFL is being pushed by companies such as Wal-Mart, which wants to sell 100 million CFLs at five times the cost of incandescent bulbs during 2007, and, surprisingly, environmentalists.
It's quite odd that environmentalists have embraced the CFL, which cannot now and will not in the foreseeable future be made without mercury. Given that there are about five billion light bulb sockets in North American households, we're looking at the possibility of creating billions of hazardous waste sites such as the Bridges' bedroom.
Usually, environmentalists want hazardous materials out of, not in, our homes. These are the same people who go berserk at the thought of mercury being emitted from power plants and the presence of mercury in seafood. Environmentalists have whipped up so much fear of mercury among the public that many local governments have even launched mercury thermometer exchange programs.
As the activist group Environmental Defense urges us to buy CFLs, it defines mercury on a separate part of its Web site as a "highly toxic heavy metal that can cause brain damage and learning disabilities in fetuses and children" and as "one of the most poisonous forms of pollution."
Greenpeace also recommends CFLs while simultaneously bemoaning contamination caused by a mercury-thermometer factory in India. But where are mercury-containing CFLs made? Not in the United States, under strict environmental regulation. CFLs are made in India and China, where environmental standards are virtually non-existent.
And let's not forget about the regulatory nightmare in the U.S. known as the Superfund law, the EPA regulatory program best known for requiring expensive but often needless cleanup of toxic waste sites, along with endless litigation over such cleanups.
We'll eventually be disposing billions and billions of CFL mercury bombs. Much of the mercury from discarded and/or broken CFLs is bound to make its way into the environment and give rise to Superfund liability, which in the past has needlessly disrupted many lives, cost tens of billions of dollars and sent many businesses into bankruptcy.
As each CFL contains five milligrams of mercury, at the Maine "safety" standard of 300 nanograms per cubic meter, it would take 16,667 cubic meters of soil to "safely" contain all the mercury in a single CFL. While CFL vendors and environmentalists tout the energy cost savings of CFLs, they conveniently omit the personal and societal costs of CFL disposal.
Not only are CFLs much more expensive than incandescent bulbs and emit light that many regard as inferior to incandescent bulbs, they pose a nightmare if they break and require special disposal procedures. Yet governments (egged on by environmentalists and the Wal-Marts of the world) are imposing on us such higher costs, denial of lighting choice, disposal hassles and breakage risks in the name of saving a few dollars every year on the electric bill? - Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and CSRWatch.com. He is a junk-science expert and advocate of free enterprise, and an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
They are called chemical sponges. I'm not familiar with their composition.
stuff that no disposal site will take I put in the midst of garbage and put out for the trash.
don’t tell.
You just can’t make this stuff up. CFL light bulbs being toxic if they are broken and can’t be assembled in the USA?
Well.... I’ll have to remember those two.
For Freepers who want to dispose of NON-broken CFL bulbs when they finally quit working, check your local hazardous waste diposal location.
I took my expired CFL there last week. No problems at all.
Soooooo .. once again .. the liberals have created a MESS!
In their quest to SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT these lightbulbs actually can cause MORE DAMAGE TO THE ENVIRONMENT .. and practically bankrupt the user.
Good going liberals .. as usual .. you never look at the results of what you do .. it’s only INSTANT GRATIFICATION.
My only question is this:
I realize it would be unusual for a bulb to break in a carpeted area, but say it hit a table, shattered and the fragments fell into the carpet.
The EPA says not to use a vacuum. Okay, now what?
Hey, you know that sounds like a business opportunity.
Have mercury vacuum, will show up and clean up for a reasonable fee.
Sure, it would be sort of the Maytag Repairman syndrome, but if it’s just a paying hobby and you’re not trying to make a living off it, could be cool.
I’d suggest replacing the carpet in that area.
Among other things, it is quite remarkably difficult to be sure you’ve gotten all the broken glass out of a carpet.
It should costless than $2k.
Are they on the NASDAQ yet?
I played with mercury, lead and asbestos as a kid, as did many of my pals.
And I'm sixty-sis...sixty-stick..sixty-sits..sizty-6.
Uh-huh. By the time I flush the low-flow toilet 3-4 times to get it to do the job, it's used waaaay more water than a "regular" toilet.
And besides, I have a well and septic tank. What the hell difference does a low-flow toilet make?
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Yep .. typical! It sounds good .. but the liberals never follow through to see what the outcome will be - that’s why they’re liberals - they seek only “feel good” remedies instead of real change.
Unless she was worried about the Garbage Police, all she had to do was remove the carpet, tie it up and let the garbage service remove it.
Americans will have to learn to use common sense or pay - and she did pay!
Arguably, the urban version of Shoot, Shovel, Shut Up will be Sweep, Sack it, Shut Up.
Are you saying older fluorescent lamps did not have mercury?
for a sec I thought they meant canadian football league.
My high school science classrooms (1982) had a bottle of mercury in each lab station cupboard. We played with it all the time.
Some compounds of mercury are much more dangerous than the metal. E.g., there was the case of the Dartmouth chemist, a specialist in toxic metals, who died from a drop of dimethylmercury that seeped through her glove.
It isn’t any one CFL that’s a problem. It’s what’s going to happen in 5 or so years when the landfills are full of these things. Most communities don’t classify them as hazardous waste, so they go in with the trash.
What are we going to do about all of the toxic waste sites then? Or are you claiming that mercury isn’t a problem?
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