My Thoughts On Compact Fluorescent Bulbs

I have a question how many of you use those CFL Bulbs. I am all for reduced energy usage and reducing cost in the home. But really what are we saving and at what cost are we doing it?

First of all I have switched to using many of these bulbs for light so have my mother and father. It has been our over all experience that these bulbs in fact DO NOT last much longer then a conventional incandescent bulb, this is even more so a fact if its in a fixture that stays on more often then it is off. Heat and the amount of time that these bulbs stay on seem to shorten the lifespan greatly. Almost to the point where they DON'T last as long as the incandescent bulbs. That in turn leads to two more issues with these stupid little bulbs that may or may not be energy efficient & environmentally friendly. They maybe in fact save energy but I have NO doubt that they are not safe for the environment. I don't know about anywhere else in the country but here in Maryland there is no place to get rid of these mercury filled bulbs other then a landfill.

CFLs, like all fluorescent lamps, contain small amounts of mercury[37][38] as vapor inside the glass tubing, averaging 4.0 mg per bulb [39] ,and it is a concern for landfills and waste incinerators where the mercury from lamps is released and contributes to air and water pollution. In the U.S., lighting manufacturer members of the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) have voluntarily capped the amount of mercury used in CFLs. [40] Many manufacturers now manufacture CFLs with only 1.0 mg or less than 1.5 mg of mercury per bulb.[41]

Read below for a little more information on these bulbs.... And one more question for those of you that used these bulbs how many of you follow the proper recycle or disposal guidelines for these bulbs? I did find it interesting that the Home Depot stores may have a program in place for recycling these bulbs. I will have to check it out. Until then I just threw one out last night and double bagged it in a sealed plastic bag and put it in the trash and after reading this morning it looks like that was the wrong thing to do!!! So who knows what to do with the damn bulbs.

Spent lamps should be recycled to contain the small amount of mercury in each lamp, in preference to disposal in landfills. Only 3 percent of CFL bulbs are properly disposed of or recycled. In the European Union, CFLs are one of many products subject to the WEEE recycling scheme. The retail price includes an amount to pay for recycling, and manufacturers and importers have an obligation to collect and recycle CFLs. Safe disposal requires storing the bulbs unbroken until they can be processed. In the US, The Home Depot is the first retailer to make CFL recycling options widely available.[46]

Special handling instructions for breakage are currently not printed on the packaging of household CFL bulbs in many countries. The amount of mercury released by one bulb can exceed U.S. federal guidelines for chronic exposure.[47][48] Chronic however, implies that the exposure takes place over a long period of time and the Maine DEP study noted that it remains unclear what the health risks are from shorter-term exposure to low levels of elemental mercury. The Maine DEP study also confirmed that, despite following EPA best-practice cleanup guidelines on broken CFLs, researchers were unable to remove mercury from carpet, and any agitation of the carpet—such as by young children playing—created spikes as high as 25,000 ng/m3 in air close to the carpet, even weeks after the initial breakage. Conventional tubular fluorescent lamps have been in commercial and domestic use since the 1930s with little public concern about their handling; these and other domestic products often contain more mercury than modern CFLs[49].

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommends that, in the absence of local guidelines, fluorescent bulbs be double-bagged in plastic before disposal.[50] The Maine DEP study of 2008 compared clean-up methods, and warned that the EPA recommendation of plastic bags was the worst choice, as vapours well above safe levels continued to leach from the bags. The Maine DEP now recommends a sealed glass jar as the best repository for a broken bulb.

The first step of processing CFLs involves crushing the bulbs in a machine that uses negative pressure ventilation and a mercury-absorbing filter or cold trap to contain mercury vapor. Many municipalities are purchasing such machines. The crushed glass and metal is stored in drums, ready for shipping to recycling factories.

According to the Northwest Compact Fluorescent Lamp Recycling Project, because household users have the option of disposing of these products in the same way they dispose of other solid waste, "a large majority of household CFLs are going to municipal solid waste". They additionally note that an EPA report on mercury emissions from fluorescent tube lamp disposal indicates the percentage of total mercury released from the following disposal options: municipal waste landfill 3.2%, recycling 3%, municipal waste incineration 17.55% and hazardous waste disposal 0.2%.[51]