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I saw a portion of a news story on the NBC Evening News that these bulbs contain mercury. The report actually said to be careful - and do not break these bulbs. They made it sound as if a HAZMAT team would have to come in and clean up the mercury "waste".
So how are you suppose to dispose of these bulbs at the end of their life? I can see the average citizen just throwing them out in the garbage.
I'm starting to think that this is one of those "ideas" that was not well thought out.
I saw a portion of a news story on the NBC Evening News that these bulbs contain mercury. The report actually said to be careful - and do not break these bulbs. They made it sound as if a HAZMAT team would have to come in and clean up the mercury "waste".
So how are you suppose to dispose of these bulbs at the end of their life? I can see the average citizen just throwing them out in the garbage.
I'm starting to think that this is one of those "ideas" that was not well thought out.
I saw a story about this on the news too. I happened to break a CFL bulb a few weeks ago when I was cleaning out my linen closet. Not having seen the news report yet, I just swept it up and threw it out. It's hard to know what to do anymore. One the one hand, it saves energy to use these bulbs, on the other hand we're poisoning the landfills if we don't dipose of them properly. We just can't win. Here's a link re: clean up: Spills, Site Cleanup and Disposal | Mercury | US EPA.
The way I understand it, the amount of mercury vapor used in the CFL is miniscule and does not present a health hazard unless you break a lot of them and breath the vapors regularly.
The bigger problem is the accumulation of them in landfills. Many retailers are starting to lauch programs to collect these at the store level for proper processing. Some do it free, others may charge a disposal fee. It is still at the cutting edge of servicing right now, but it seems like this will become a standard service in the near future for most of the big vendors of CFLs.
The way I understand it, the amount of mercury vapor used in the CFL is miniscule and does not present a health hazard unless you break a lot of them and breath the vapors regularly.
The bigger problem is the accumulation of them in landfills. Many retailers are starting to lauch programs to collect these at the store level for proper processing. Some do it free, others may charge a disposal fee. It is still at the cutting edge of servicing right now, but it seems like this will become a standard service in the near future for most of the big vendors of CFLs.
I read that Walmart is working on starting a recycling program, and I believe Home Depot already has one in place.
Thanks for the posts. I personally have not seen any of these "recycle" bins at the stores - but I have not looked for them either.
I recycle all of my plastic bags by returning them to the grocery store(s) to the bins provided. I go to the grocery up to 3 times a week sometimes more, so taking the plastic there is easy. Unfortunately, I do not see many people doing this.
That's why I fear - unless we make it very easy for consumers, these cf bulbs are going to end up in the landfills.
CFL's are useless. LED is where its at. Right now though, all the big companies are trying to rake in more money on CFL's rather than admitting they are completely inferior in both performance and energy conservation compared to LEDs.
I have a house full of CFL's, but have a friend who has LEDs and they are much better. You also have NOTHING to worry about with mercury as they don't contain any. People who truly care about the environment will help spread the word about LEDs since the CFL manufacturers are not in any hurry to do so. They'd rather rake in profits pretending to be green for a few more years and see a slow transition to LED's.
You'd have to cram 100 LED's into one bulb for it to be bright enough. I have some outdoor lights that have four LED's in them and they are so dim they're useless.
We recently bought new crank-up flashlights and a lantern and they are LED...I love them!
I'd be very open to switching over to LED if there is a choice available.
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