I have concerns about the amount of mercury in CFLs. I'm not sure if the claims of danger are blown out of proportion. Our government, while outlawing minuscule amounts of lead wouldn't put us in danger of mercury poison would they??
Anyway, I don't put CFLs anywhere that my children might potentially break them.
My other big concern is how will people dispose of these new mercury laden bulbs in a responsible manner?
Well, truth be told, Obama voters simply won't dispose of these bulbs responsibly. They'll end up in the garbage, in the landfills and eventually, I suspect, in the water supply.
I plan to send my spent CFLs to the US congress and let them figure out what the hell to do with them.
“I’ve had mixed results with the CFLs. I put them places where it is a real pain in the can to change a bulb.”
One other option is to buy the super-long life incandescent bulbs that LBE sells (use my link). They are rated at 20,000 hours. The tradeoff is that you don’t get much light for the wattage, as I guess their filaments are super-thick, and they glow kind of yellow. I wasn’t too impressed, but I could definitely see their value in critical areas (like very hard to reach areas, or nuke plants, etc.).