Compact Florescent Light bulbs are going to bring big, expensive, trouble to everyone who installs them. A look at the very recent history of the radon gas fiasco shows just how that will happen.
If you want to sell your house in Colorado, you are going to have to get it tested for the colorless, odorless gas called radon. That test will cost several hundred dollars, and needs to be read by a certified reader. If gas is found, and out here it almost always is, radon mitigation systems will need to be installed, starting at about a thousand, going up to many thousands. Then the test needs to be repeated, to make sure that the radon is brought under control.
CFLs will be the same. Do you rent? You will have to increase your deposit to rent. When you leave, you will be forced to ‘prove’ that you didn’t break a bulb during the course of the lease. That will cost you a couple hundred dollars. Did a bulb break while you lived there? Add another $500 or more for the professional to clean it up.
Do you own your own home? To sell your entire house will have to be declared ‘mercury free’ That will cost you several hundred dollars to get that piece of paper. If they find mercury, a profession is going to have to come in and clean it up. For a house, that could very well cost another thousand or more.
Radon gas mitigation is a scam, a racket designed to line the pockets of a few, at the expense of the foolish, and those of us who are caught in the traps mandated by folks who are foolish.
The same is on its way for those who are foolish enough, or rich enough, to use CFLs.
If you can’t afford the processes and costs I’ve outlined above, DON’T USE COMPACT FLORESCENT BULBS!
Normal fluorescent lamps are even worse mercury polluters when broken than the typical modern CFL. As long as the CFL is the darling du jour, you can bet that most people will turn a blind eye to its mercury content.
Radon, a gas that normal healthy people breathe back out as readily as they breathe it in, is virtually harmless except to smokers. In their case, the radon and the smoke pack a one-two punch by adsorbing the radon and making it linger for days in the lungs until expelled by smoker’s cough.