Intresting Stuff on CFL's...

[Guest]

Wow I had no Idea how dangerous these lights were and how dangerous to the enviorment!

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=aa7796aa-e4a5-4c06-be84-b62dee548fda

The CFL mercury nightmare

Steven Milloy
Financial Post

Saturday, April 28, 2007

How much money does it take to screw in a compact fluorescent light bulb? About US$4.28 for the bulb and labour -- unless you break the bulb. Then you, like Brandy Bridges of Ellsworth, Maine, could be looking at a cost of about US$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 favour of compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs).

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 US$2,000 to clean up the room. The room then was sealed off with plastic and Bridges began "gathering finances" to pay for the US$2,000 cleaning. Reportedly, her insurance company wouldn't cover the cleanup costs because mercury is a pollutant.

Given that the replacement of incandescent bulbs with CFLs in the average U.S. household is touted as saving as much as US$180 annually in energy costs -- and assuming that Bridges doesn't break any more CFLs -- it will take her more than 11 years to recoup the cleanup costs in the form of energy savings.

The potentially hazardous CFL is being pushed by companies such as Wal-Mart, which wants to sell 100 million CFLs at five times the cost of incandescent bulbs during 2007, and, surprisingly, environmentalists.

It's quite odd that environmentalists have embraced the CFL, which cannot now and will not in the foreseeable future be made without mercury. Given that there are about five billion light bulb sockets in North American households, we're looking at the possibility of creating billions of hazardous waste sites such as the Bridges' bedroom.

Usually, environmentalists want hazardous materials out of, not in, our homes. These are the same people who go berserk at the thought of mercury being emitted from power plants and the presence of mercury in seafood. Environmentalists have whipped up so much fear of mercury among the public that many local governments have even launched mercury thermometer exchange programs.

As the activist group Environmental Defense urges us to buy CFLs, it defines mercury on a separate part of its Web site as a "highly toxic heavy metal that can cause brain damage and learning disabilities in fetuses and children" and as "one of the most poisonous forms of pollution."

Greenpeace also recommends CFLs while simultaneously bemoaning contamination caused by a mercury-thermometer factory in India. But where are mercury-containing CFLs made? Not in the United States, under strict environmental regulation. CFLs are made in India and China, where environmental standards are virtually non-existent.

And let's not forget about the regulatory nightmare in the U.S. known as the Superfund law, the EPA regulatory program best known for requiring expensive but often needless cleanup of toxic waste sites, along with endless litigation over such cleanups.

We'll eventually be disposing billions and billions of CFL mercury bombs. Much of the mercury from discarded and/or broken CFLs is bound to make its way into the environment and give rise to Superfund liability, which in the past has needlessly disrupted many lives, cost tens of billions of dollars and sent many businesses into bankruptcy.

As each CFL contains five milligrams of mercury, at the Maine "safety" standard of 300 nanograms per cubic meter, it would take 16,667 cubic meters of soil to "safely" contain all the mercury in a single CFL. While CFL vendors and environmentalists tout the energy cost savings of CFLs, they conveniently omit the personal and societal costs of CFL disposal.

Not only are CFLs much more expensive than incandescent bulbs and emit light that many regard as inferior to incandescent bulbs, they pose a nightmare if they break and require special disposal procedures. Yet governments (egged on by environmentalists and the Wal-Marts of the world) are imposing on us such higher costs, denial of lighting choice, disposal hassles and breakage risks in the name of saving a few dollars every year on the electric bill? - Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and CSRWatch.com. He is a junk-science expert and advocate of free enterprise, and an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

 

[marx2k]

Yep. This is the main reason why I really am fearing the major push in America to go with CFL's. As if we don't have enough mercury in our bodies, food and water - here's another 5mg per bulb just waiting to turn into methylmercury and start it's way up the food chain or star it's way up your bloodstream only to accumulate in your body.

It's like getting rid of the gasoline engine and replacing them with efficient, low-power-consuming but very leaky nuclear engines.

5mg of mercury is actually a LOT of mercury. The EPA and local governments have been warning people about eating fish for a few years now. My state's level of EPA has maps of the state with each lake and river and where it's safe to eat fish from and where it's not due to mercury. And I can tell you, I am just better off not eating fish at all from my state.

I would rather we be pushing LED technology for practical purposes beyond flashlights and under-counter tract lighting.

The only thing that kind of strikes me as odd is the path the author veers off to in the last paragraph when he talks about CFL's being more expensive and having 'inferior light'?

Yes, they're expensive but pay for themselves given their lifetime use. And the CFL's being put out now can mimic the light produced by incadescents well enough to where people don't notice the difference. Also, putting environmentalists and Wal_mart in the same sentence is a bad move.

But yeah, how many people shopping for CFLs at WalMart will know to call in the local HazMat team when a bulb breaks?

 

[Yummybud]

I don't know I've broken a cfl in my room lol, I just cleaned up the glass and opened the windows.

I thought it was mercury gass in ther.

maybe just be careful and you won't break any

 

[marx2k]

Case in point

 

[LeoNardoDaVinci]

Wow. I really do not know what to say. Thank you for bringing that to my attention. Now the question of the day. What do I do, now that I know this?

 

[LeoNardoDaVinci]

I don't know I've broken a cfl in my room lol, I just cleaned up the glass and opened the windows.

I thought it was mercury gass in ther.

maybe just be careful and you won't break any

How Yummybud became Yummybud...kinda like our "big bang" The dropping of that cfl was the big bang that borned Yummybud.

 

[Yummybud]

there are LED lights now, haven't seen them for sale but they have been made and are about 30 bucks each, and should last pretty much a lifetime and they use very little electricity.

I think LED lights will replace both incandecent / flourescent lights.

 

[marx2k]

You have a couple of choices here:
- Continue to use incadescents
- Push for LED development
- Use CFL's, don't break them
- Use CFL's and when they're done, return them to the store you bought them at

From what I understand, any place you buy a CFL from has to accept them back at the end of their life in order to recycle them. Maybe that's just Home Depot though?

The CFL sitting next to me that's lighting my room has a big Hg label on the side (Hg is elemental symbol for mercury) But do you think most people know this?

My city does single stream recycling meaning we chuck our cardboard, plastic and aluminum in the same recycling bin and let the city sort it out. And I think they are telling people that they can put their CFLs in there also. BAD idea.

 

[marx2k]

there are LED lights now, haven't seen them for sale but they have been made and are about 30 bucks each, and should last pretty much a lifetime and they use very little electricity.

I think LED lights will replace both incandecent / flourescent lights.

I thought the main problem with LEDs was the the light they emitted had a very short, diffuse travel distance?

Or maybe I'm totally mistaken.

Are the LED lights youre talking about fitted into normal fixtures or do you have to buy special fixtures for them?

 

[marx2k]

Here's the other thing... how many growers are using CFL's?

How many CFL's does one grower use?

How many of those CFL's do you think are going to be recycled versus thrown into the closest landfill?

 

[Yummybud]

I'm not sure, I would think they would make them to fit into regular fixtures as most people won't redesign their entire house to use LEDS. I don't see a problem with making them use a regular fixture.

LEDs use very little electricity so it would definately make a big difference. But I think it will be a few year until they get them right. I'm not sure how the light from an LED would compare to the light from flouresecent/ incandescent bulbs.

yeah I'd say about the CFLs it can do more harm than good, because a lot of people will break them and it can have some really bad long term effects

 

[Yummybud]

Here's the other thing... how many growers are using CFL's?

How many CFL's does one grower use?

How many of those CFL's do you think are going to be recycled versus thrown into the closest landfill?

most people won't recycle them properly it'll just go in the trash.

 

[Liam]

Hey, this article is written by a nut job, its exaggerating and not tell the whole truth.

Now i don't believe CFLs last long, because I switched to them 3 yrs ago and more than half died on me after 1 year, I hope newer ones last longer. Also, they use more watts than the label says, they don't count the electronic ballasts electric use.

But the reason enviro-nuts are pushing CFLs is because supposidely it reduces overal mercury release into the environment by reducing coal burned at power plants... The main problem with this point is that coal plants won't reduce the coal they burn, and not all our power comes from coal.

Also, house lighting is not a significant use of electricity, Canadas gov. says only 15% I recall. All those street lights use more than your house will ever. I did didn't see a drop in my electric use more than a few kwh, so I don't think they saved me any money.

Now most fluros already do just goto the dump, so adding CFLs to the mix won't change much, besides, mercury is pretty much everywhere now, in our air, seafood, and a lot of consumer goods.

So overall, change your lights that are on for long periods of time to CFLs, otherwise leave the old ones in.

/Also, incadesent ship in cardboard and are made in America, where CFLs are in plastic and are from China.

 

[marx2k]

Hey, this article is written by a nut job, its exaggerating and not tell the whole truth.

Now i don't believe CFLs last long, because I switched to them 3 yrs ago and more than half died on me after 1 year, I hope newer ones last longer. Also, they use more watts than the label says, they don't count the electronic ballasts electric use.

Yes, newer ones (not the cheap ones) last a lot longer than incadescents (15 times) - 15,000 hours vs 1,000 hours. The electric use of the electronic ballast is negligible. My 16W Sylvania reflector CFL puts out as much perceived light as a 60W incadescent.

But the reason enviro-nuts are pushing CFLs is because supposidely it reduces overal mercury release into the environment by reducing coal burned at power plants... The main problem with this point is that coal plants won't reduce the coal they burn, and not all our power comes from coal.

Thats actually not why environmentalists push CFL's as they realize this as well. Overall energy use IS lowered if cfl's are replaced with incadescents. In the home, it does cut down on the power usage that the incadescent bulb would have been using so the idea is to replace with CFLs at the end of the incadescent's life.

If you really want to get into it, you can also consider that CFLs will put out less heat which means less that a house has to cool in the summer and less energy is wasted and transferred into heat.

Also, house lighting is not a significant use of electricity, Canadas gov. says only 15% I recall. All those street lights use more than your house will ever. I did didn't see a drop in my electric use more than a few kwh, so I don't think they saved me any money.

We're talking over the life span of the bulb. If your bulbs only lasted one year, you probably wouldn't have seen much of a drop in the bill. But assuredly you saw a drop over what the incadescent would have been using. So you save a few cents. But over the life of the bulb, if the bulb lasts as long as it's supposed to, you would have definately saved a bundle of money.

BTW, 15% energy use/cost for most households is a significant drop.

It is true that those street lights use more power than my house lights, but then I don't use my grow op as house lighting

Now most fluros already do just goto the dump, so adding CFLs to the mix won't change much.

Home Depot just finished giving away 1,000,000 CFL's ass part of it's Earth Day program. If America goes along with the trend of phasing in CFLs to replace incadescents, you better believe it will be a significant addition to the mix.

Besides, mercury is pretty much everywhere now, in our air, seafood, and a lot of consumer goods.

That's true. But it's not like I want to add MORE. Though I see that as inevitable, sadly.

So overall, change your lights that are on for long periods of time to CFLs, otherwise leave the old ones in.

I agree

Also, incadesent ship in cardboard and are made in America, where CFLs are in plastic and are from China.

Some incadescnets ship in plastic and are made in China, some CFLs ship in cardboard and are made in America. It really depends on the brand and how cheap/quality it is.

I'm going to go along with you and just replace the every day bulbs with CFLs and wait for LED lights to come down in price/go up in useability.

Also I can buy lower wattage incadescents to use in low-use areas.

When considering that breaking a CFL is as dangerous as breaking a thermometer, that's scary.

 

[Yummybud]

the two cfls in my bedroom are like 5 years old and they still haven't burnt out.

maybe some cheap brands burn out faster. Also turning them on and off a lot will decrease their life. As they get old they are not as bright as they are when new so I kind of want to replace these.

I actually like the white flourescent light better than the red incadescent but I hear there are cfls that are more red.

 

[zamalito]

I have an led powered flashlight. It 1 watt and really kicks out some strong light. Led's are definitely the way to go.

 

[Guest]

How Yummybud became Yummybud...kinda like our "big bang" The dropping of that cfl was the big bang that borned Yummybud.

Ewww, CFL droppings. :F

Vaaappuuuuu!!

 

[Guest]

FLINTSTONERS did an article about a month or so ago about this; Leave it to the birds and their informative articles.

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=56368

J.

 

[70s_PotHead]

Great thread with good info from both sides. I will say this, I have a porch light that I used to have to replace the bulb about every 2 months, I put a CFL in it over a year ago and the same bulb is still burning

70s

 

[Guest]

My dad just recently changed the bulbs in the house to you know what~ and yes they do have a big Hg on them.

Today I read an article on CFLs, I was expecting something about the mercury...You know what the article was about? How men are going to hardware stores and getting CFLs and how women hate them in their house because they take a while to warm up...
WTF