Home Depot Offers Recycling for Compact Fluorescent Bulbs

NY Times ^ | June 24, 2008 | STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM

[neverdem]

Some big retailers are promoting compact fluorescent light bulbs as a way to save energy. But improper disposal of the bulbs creates a hazard, because they contain small amounts of mercury.

Recycling them is about to get easier. Home Depot, the nation’s second-largest retailer, will announce on Tuesday that it will take back old compact fluorescents in all 1,973 of its stores in the United States, creating the nation’s most widespread recycling program for the bulbs.

“We kept hearing from the community that there was a little bit of concern about mercury in the C.F.L.’s,” said Ron Jarvis, Home Depot’s senior vice president for environmental innovation, using the industry abbreviation for the bulbs. “And if the C.F.L.’s were in their house, how could they dispose of them?”

Until now, consumers had to seek out local hazardous waste programs or smaller retail chains willing to collect the bulbs for recycling, like Ikea and True Value. Some consumers have waited for retailers like Wal-Mart to have a designated recycling day. Others bought kits to mail the bulbs to a recycling facility.

The Environmental Protection Agency has been looking into putting bulb drop-off boxes at post offices, said Jim Berlow, director of the agency’s hazardous waste minimization and management division.

But those plans are not final, and across most of the country, recycling the bulbs has been inconvenient at best. Industry professionals estimate that the recycling rate is around 2 percent.

Home Depot’s program, which will accept any maker’s bulbs, will bring relatively convenient recycling within reach of most households. Mr. Jarvis estimated that 75 percent of the nation’s homes are within 10 miles of a Home Depot.

“We’re trying to do the right thing,” he said. “Some of the things that we do are for the community and not for the bottom...”

[weegee]

The Environmental Protection Agency has been looking into putting bulb drop-off boxes at post offices

Accidently break the bulb INSIDE the post office while dropping it off and expect to be prosecuted as a biochemical attacker.

[weegee]

You have to pay to “recycle” your car battery and your tires.

Why not bill you for the bulbs too?

[Mamzelle]

Do they mean they will recycle, or just dispose of the bulbs for the consumer?

Good marketing--will generate traffic, especially in the right target groups.

People who use these bulbs tend not to turn them off. I've read one report where energy use actually increased in a community that made a push to get regular bulbs replaced...

[neverdem]

People who use these bulbs tend not to turn them off.

Looking at Fluorescent Bulbs in Different Light

But longer life and energy savings come with a caveat — the fluorescent bulbs must be used for at least 15minutes once they are turned on and ideally for at least several hours at a time. Turning them off quickly after you have turned them on dramatically reduces their life expectancy. Not being able to use light bulbs simply when it is convenient is a cost the consumers will bear even if politicians didn’t factor it into their estimates of savings.