If you're just starting to purchase CFL bulbs, then it's likely years off before they'll need to be disposed of. 4 hours per day usage would give the average bulb a 5 year life. 24 hour a day usage will give you 1 year.
The amount of mercury in each CFL is very small and not dangerous individually. It's also less than the amount of mercury released by power plants that would have supplied the excess electricity to power a set of equivalent incandescent bulbs. But since recycling is not difficult it is a shame to pass up the opportunity to reduce the mercury impact further.
Many cities, like Chicago, offer "Household Hazardous Waste" collection centers, where any non-commercial, non-industrial waste can be dropped off for free.
Another solution is to order a bulk recycling container LampTracker sells containers for 106 bulbs for $69.95, or EASYPAK for up to 90 bulbs for $74.95. That includes the container, the shipping charges and the recycling fees. That's less than $1 per bulb.
In some states, another option is Wal-Mart occasionally takes bulbs back for free. There are no promises there, but considering the lifetime of the bulbs a few months wait for disposal isn't a great hassle.
If you're still worried about whether you'll be able to recycle your bulbs, you can buy low CFL bulbs. Neolite bulbs have only 1mg of mercury per bulb, rather than 5mg. That is less than the amount of mercury a CFL bulb will produce through electricity consumption (2.4mg), and a tenth of what incandescents will produce (10mg). Normal, unrecycled CFL bulbs reduce mercury production by 33% compared to incandescent bulbs. An unrecycled Neolite reduces production by 66%. A recycled CFL, of any type, reduces production by 75%.
Neolite is a bit ahead of the other manufacturers, but most, if not all, plan to follow suit next year by reducing average mercury per CFL by 3.6mg per bulb.
Personally, the mercury content in my bulbs isn't a concern as I plan to recycle them no matter how much is present, and it's years before I'll even be doing that, but it shows honest pragmatism about consumer activity for manufacturers to insure no matter what happens less mercury will be released, adding further to the environmental benefit of CFLs over the incandescent.
5 comments:
Yes, that all sounds wonderful. What happens when one of these Murcury fill bulbs break? I see that is never mentioned.
There are two ways to answer that question, one of which I have mentioned before. Which one depends on what you're concern with breakage is.
If you're concern is an isolated breakage and it's personal impact to you, then you should exercise caution, but not fear. You're more at risk from the broken glass then from the incredibly small amount of mercury.
Some simple precautions are advisable, like not cleaning up the broken glass with your bare hands. I wouldn't be surprised to hear you've been misinformed by a poorly written article about a lady in Maine. I've presented arguments previously as to why this story is BS. You should also read the Maine DEP account of events, of which the majority of details were omitted from the "Junk Science" article.
If you're concern is about the environmental effects of many broken bulbs, I'd remind you that even if all bulbs were broken and unrecycled, they'd still be reducing mercury pollution by cutting coal burning power plant usage. It's unlikely however that all bulbs will be broken. I can't recall the last time I broke an incandescent, and it almost always occurred when changing the bulb. In addition, CFL bulbs have more durable glass and are more difficult to shatter. Lastly, over the course of usage, mercury in a CFL is absorbed by the glass and so shattering a burnt out CFL will release much less than the manufactured quantity of mercury.
Do you know of any groups or activists that are out there working for new ideas or alerting people as to their options with CFLs?
Sure. If you're looking to help others understand the value and facts behind CFLs, you can start here with the petition to the left.
Also there is http://www.onebillionbulbs.com/, http://freecfl.wordpress.com/ and http://store.greenlightsusa.com/. In addition the general environmental community has several efforts.
If you're looking for organizations to help with recycling information, there is the earth911.org resource in this page. There is also http://www.zerowaste.org/cfl/cfl_index.htm
So far CFL recycling efforts focus on making it easy to recycle, rather than promotion because to be honest, there aren't that many CFLs yet, fewer yet which are old enough to have burnt out, and most of those owned by environmentally conscious individuals. Thus it makes more sense to prepare for the prepare the infrastructure then promote it's use.
Thanks
But your forgetting one very important fact. Nuclear power plants do produce toxic chemicals into our environment, but they are far away from civilization. On the other hand, a CFL is in your own home. After breaking a single CFL bulb, mercury concentrations in a room often exceeded state clean air guidelines, and briefly soared to more than 166 times the limit of 300 nanogram per cubic meter. Vacuuming only stirs up what remains, and the vacuum itself can be permanently contaminated. This happens in your own house!
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