Posted on 09/23/2010 11:58:18 AM PDT by American Dream 246
If not disposed of properly, CFL light bulbs, which Congress is pushing as a preferable and energy efficient alternative to incandescent bulbs, may poison you, contaminate your food and water supply, destroy the environment and kill your children.
If light bulbs were regulated like cigarettes, this is what it might say on the side of the box of “environmentally friendly” bulbs that you just picked up at Target.
The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 banned almost all use of incandescent bulbs (the normal looking ones that pop up over cartoon characters’ heads in moments of brilliance) by 2014. They are to be replaced by more energy efficient bulbs. Currently, for lack of better technology, CFLs are the heir apparent.
According to the EPA’s website, CFLs “[use] about 75 percent less energy than standard incandescent bulbs and [last] up to 10 times longer.” So if you still secretly want to be Captain Planet — which, let’s face it, we all do — it seems like the right product choice to go about being a hero and taking pollution down to zero.
Here’s the problem: CFLs contain mercury, which, in high concentrations, is poisonous. When a bulb is in use, it’s a non-issue, since the mercury is safely contained in the glass tubes. But when a light bulb comes to the end of its life, whether by natural or violent causes, things get tricky.
If a light bulb breaks, as The Daily Caller reported last week, you basically have to call out the HAZMAT team. Sometimes, light bulbs simply fizzle out and die. At which point you probably climb up on a ladder, unscrew the bulb, replace it with another one, and dump the old one in a trash can.
No matter how careful you are, somewhere between your kitchen and the landfill, breakage is inevitable. Says Rick Cochrane of Waste Management, “it’s going to break in an uncontrolled environment somewhere,” and that puts people in danger — the garbage man, the janitor, your dog who sticks its head in the trash can looking for food — and it also contaminates the environment. According to the EPA, “Even very small amounts … can accumulate and cause environmental problems. Such environmental contamination can linger for decades”
“Because the amount in each bulb is so low,” Paul Abernathy, executive director of Association of Lighting and Mercury Recyclers, says, “people tend to not really think of that as a huge environmental crisis. However, because there are so many bulbs that are broken that way — we have estimated that there may be more than 500 million bulbs that are broken that way — so it does add up to a significant amount of mercury.”
The takeaway is that, if you like to eat fish, drink water or breathe in areas where there are trash cans, it’s in your best interest to recycle a CFL. If you don’t know how, there websites that can help you out. Earth 911comes highly recommended: The website functions as a database that can help you locate the nearest recycling facility that takes CFLs. Recycle-a-bulb has a similar feature.
Did you know any of those sites existed? Neither did we. More importantly, what would have motivated you to go look for them?
This is the fundamental problem with CFL disposal: The information is there, but it has not been adequately publicized, and there’s no motivation to go out and find it.
According to the EPA, they have been working with manufacturers and vendors to promote CFL recycling, as well as providing for the “development and implementation of mercury lamp recycling outreach programs. Grant recipients implemented highly visible outreach programs to promote proper recycling of mercury-containing lamps.”
While praise for CFLs is easy to find on the EPA’s website instructions on how to dispose of them are not on the CFL page; rather, they can be found in the “Mercury” section of the EPA’s website, a placement that requires you to know that CFLs contain mercury in the first place.
Manufacturers post warnings on the boxes of bulbs, but who actually reads instructions — especially on something as self-explanatory as a light bulb? Besides, Abernathy points out, even if you do, are you really going to remember them five years down the line when the bulb finally burns out?
Perhaps as a result, the danger posed by exposure to mercury simply doesn’t seem to be on the radar. Thom Metzger, director of communications at NSWMA, the trade association representing people who collect garbage, told TheDC, “I’m somewhat less concerned about a mercury release; I’m more concerned about someone getting cut [by glass].”
As if there weren’t enough problems already, recycling CFLs is expensive, both for the consumer, who has to go out and find a recycling drop off, or shell out $16.95 for Waste Management’s Think Green Home Recycling Kit, and for the people who do the recycling. “There’s not enough value in the recovered materials,” says Cochrane. “In fact there’s a net cost.”
Lastly, there is simply no way to force people to recycle CFLs. Even if there’s a law requiring it, as in California, how can you make sure people comply, short of installing hidden cameras and picking through people’s trash?
At what point do the costs outweigh the benefits? How many people does it take throwing CFL bulbs into landfills before the amount of mercury contamination is so harmful that the energy savings aren’t worth it?
It’s a question no one seems to be able answer. Until they can, pick your poison.
In this case, four. You don't count Zer0.
Zer0, like a stooge, is standing on a chair holding a CFL. On each corner of the chair is one of his staff raising Zer0 up to screw it in. Zer0 puts it in the socket and they start turning the chair. Zer0 calls down, “I think it is in!” They yell up, “No we need to keep turning.” This is what they are doing to the country. They are using Zer0 to turn the bulb. All he has to do is hold the bulb. They will turn and turn and turn until Zer0 yells down, I think it is in!” They continue turning until . . . . . . . CRACK!!!!!! The bulb is broken.
. . . .The country is broken and must suffer the toxic consequences.
And there you got me. I grabbed a statistic for the amount of mercury in oil, which is low because of refining. We burn a lot of coal--you've got the better statistic--and its over a 1000 times higher than the number I found. Thanks.
I think you math is wrong.
1 Ounce = 28,349.5231 Milligrams
So, every 5,669.90463 CFLS (at 5mg each) would add 1 Ounce.
So 1,000,000 CFLs would add 176.3698096 ounces (1,000,000 / 5,669.90463).
And a billion CFLS (annual sales are what?) would add 100 times that.
The questions are really three. Concentration where they are dumped, degree of that concentration being carried beyond the location where dumped, by water - becoming part of the water table, and what constitutes a toxic (PPM) level should that happen.
Oh I agree my math was wrong. I was working on micrograms when I shoulda been working in milligrams.
My bad.
You are correct ... except that a billion CFLs would be 3 orders of magnitude more HG than a million — 10e9 vs. 10e6.
Plus you have to add in all the waste from mining and processing that much HG from ore. All in China.. Yikes.
Just two....
Interesting that the greenies don't know that 10-10-10 is fertilizer (10% N-P-K)
Elemental mercury has very little availability in the environment, until biological action turns it into the far more poisonous methyl mercury. The bulbs don’t contain free liquid mercury like they used to, however; they contain solid metal elements that hold the mercury as an amalgam until the heat of the bulb’s operation causes it to evaporate into the bulb’s glass tube (i.e. the bulb “warms up.”) Then when the bulb is shut off and cools, the mercury condenses back onto the elements and gets absorbed again. This cuts down on the amount of mercury that can get loose from these bulbs if they are later broken.
Well, the AGW scam certainly is exactly similar to the “old fashioned” type of fertilizer!
Thank you for the info.
The doc’s at the VA are going to hook me up to an EEG and trigger a seizure just to see what is going on inside my brain housing unit.
“Plus you have to add in all the waste from mining and processing that much HG from ore. All in China.. Yikes.”
Yes, a lot IS mined in China; but the U.S. mines tons of coal for power generation as well.
However, it is incorrect for the CFL pushers to claim that CFLs do NOT make a net addition of mercury to the environment. They do. No matter how efficient they are, their efficiency does not change one speck of the burning of coal for power; so whatever CFL’s contain in mercury does become a net addition to the environment.
Also, I believe that getting rid of the mercury in the coal burning process will be easier to achieve with technology than the big brother regime that would be required to keep CFLs out of the landfills.
Sorry for the late reply. I would disagree with your assertion. You claim that reducing the amount of electricity we use for lighting won’t cause us to burn less coal in power plants. This is true on it’s face. We aren’t about to shut down any power plants because people switch to more efficient lighting. Instead, if we use less electricity to achieve the same amount of work, (work in this case being light,) we are going to lower the rate at which demand increases. This means that we will open fewer new power plants than we otherwise would need. Some of these power plants that we won’t open would have burned coal. That’s where the savings comes from. Obviously, using technology to find cleaner ways to burn coal and other fossils is very important as well. In the long run, plant technology is the most important thing as far as mercury pollution is concerned.
“In the long run, plant technology is the most important thing as far as mercury pollution is concerned.”
That was my final comment as well.
But, I do not discount the possibility for technology to greatly lower or remove the mercury now emitted from coal burning plants (which you seem to either not appreciate or believe in).
As agreeable as your argument is, it is not the argument of the pushers of CFLs. Their argument pretends that CFLs REDUCE the mercury added to the environment NOW. They don’t.
Last year, I switched from timer controlled halogen landscaping/outdoor lights to warm bright LEDs. It's now a utilization difference of 585 W vs 88 W. The low voltage light systems were already LED. Awaiting more progress/variability/costs of home use LED lights
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