$2000 cleanup.......
How much money does it take to screw in a compact fluorescent lightbulb? About $4.28 for the bulb and labor — unless you break the bulb. Then you, like Brandy Bridges of Ellsworth, Maine, could be looking at a cost of about $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 favor of compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) — a move already either adopted or being considered in California, Canada, the European Union and Australia.
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 $2,000 to clean up the room. The room then was sealed off with plastic and Bridges began “gathering finances” to pay for the $2,000 cleaning. Reportedly, her insurance company wouldn’t cover the cleanup costs because mercury is a pollutant.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/2007/04/29/junk-science-light-bulb-lunacy/
“Aware that CFLs contain potentially hazardous substances, Bridges called her local Home Depot for advice. “
So how about a little civil disobedience?
Show up at the big box stores and get a few boxes of the pig tail lights. Go around the store with your shopping cart acting like a normal shopper. Conveniently toss one of the bulbs in random areas like a non explosive grenade.
Then call 911 and report toxic contamination at the local big box hardware store.
I bet a dollar to donuts they simply sweep the breakage up and throw it in the trash. No need for special toxic containment measures for them.
Six times? Try. 100000 times in local vicinity
Mercury(g). Weighs 200 g vs 32 for air and acts as a saturated liquid when released
You actually can only get rid of it by throwing out all items that come in contact
Oh and it’s odorless. Colorless. You can’t see it smell it or state it
This 50+ year push by guvmint/industry in their greed to sell us these stupid evil lights is an ongoing environmental catastrophe of the first order
I’m dead serious. The fluorescent light is pure evil