Shining a light on hazards of fluorescent bulbs (Hg in CFLs)

[Dogmudgeon]

Some good news (mainly in reducing carbon gas emissions), but a lot more bad news than we wanted.

Compact fluorescent light bulbs, long touted by environmentalists as a more efficient and longer-lasting alternative to the incandescent bulbs that have lighted homes for more than a century, are running into resistance from waste industry officials and some environmental scientists, who warn that the bulbs’ poisonous innards pose a bigger threat to health and the environment than previously thought.

...

... But while the bulbs are extremely energy-efficient, one problem hasn’t gone away: All CFLs contain mercury, a neurotoxin that can cause kidney and brain damage.

The amount is tiny — about 5 milligrams, or barely enough to cover the tip of a pen — but that is enough to contaminate up to 6,000 gallons of water beyond safe drinking levels, extrapolated from Stanford University research on mercury. Even the latest lamps promoted as “low-mercury” can contaminate more than 1,000 gallons of water beyond safe levels.

There is no disputing that overall, fluorescent bulbs save energy and reduce pollution in general. An average incandescent bulb lasts about 800 to 1,500 hours; a spiral fluorescent bulb can last as long as 10,000 hours. In just more than a year — since the beginning of 2007 — 9 million fluorescent bulbs have been purchased in California, preventing the release of 1.5 billion pounds of carbon dioxide compared with traditional bulbs, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23694819/">MSNBC online

We need to get a serious CFL recycling effort underway -- and put some muscle into semiconductor waste management in anticipation of LED illumination and PV technology. Even the Europeans' RoHS system is only a first step.

--p!

[dkf]

1. oh oh. I just bought a bunch of these.

[OKIsItJustMe]

3. Don't be too concerned

If your power is generated by coal, burning the coal to light a series of equivalent incandescent bulbs for the lifetime of a CFL would release more mercury into the environment than if you broke your CFL and let the mercury evaporate.

Contact your local authorities to ask about how to dispose of/recycle your CFL's.

http://lighterfootstep.com/5-ways-to-recycle-a-cfl.html

[napoleon_in_rags]

2. That's why they are just a stepping stone.

Everybody is waiting for some Einstein to get a an LED based solution we can use. Fluorescent bulbs are just a stepping stone toward that state. Watt for watt the LED solution could be twice as energy efficient as fluorescent bulbs, last forever literally and be totally environmentally sound.

[skids]

14. The Einstein's completed their work last year...

...they passed cfl efficiency on the bench, and matched it in production... what we're waiting for now is a Harold Ford to get the assembly lines going. Shouldn't take long. Philips and some others are chomping at the bit to get into the general lighting market.

[OKIsItJustMe]

4. Living on Earth article

http://www.loe.org/shows/shows.htm?programID=08-P13-00011#feature5

...

Broken Bulb Dreams

CURWOOD: Now, one of the easiest carbon-cutting ideas is to swap out incandescent light bulbs and replace them with compact fluorescent bulbs. Compact fluorescents have been touted as the Great Light Hope, but there are problems with these bulbs: they contain a small amount of toxic mercury. A broken bulb can emit vapors that may be dangerous to a person's health, and disposal is a problem. With me now to shine, well, a light on this subject is Urvashi Rangan. She's a senior scientist and policy analyst with Consumer's Union. Dr. Rangan, welcome back to Living on Earth.

RANGAN: Thank you so much, Steve.

CURWOOD: Dr. Rangan, there are a couple of studies, I think one done by the state of Maine and another from the Mercury Policy Project based in Vermont, that have issued some reports on the risks of mercury poisoning to infants, children, and pregnant women if compact fluorescent bulbs break. What are the findings of those reports?

RANGAN: In those reports they reported on a series of experiments that they did where they broke compact fluorescent bulbs in a small or moderate sized room, and then they conducted various clean-up techniques. And then they tested the air at various height levels that would represent either an infant walking around, or a toddler, or an adult. So they looked at one foot and five feet in terms of the height differential and the amount of mercury that was found at those different height levels.

...

Related links:
- Consumers Union
- To read the report “Shedding Light on Mercury Risks from CFL Breakage,” click here
- Maine DEP lamp breakage study and revised cleanup guide

...

[kestrel91316]

6. I still had the same old CFLs in my rental house in 2007 when I moved out

that I had put in the fixtures in 2000 not long after moving in. And I was careful not to break any. They saved me A LOT of money in electrical bills, and saved the folks in NM and CO a lot of air pollution from that coal-fired power plant out in Four Corners that LA owns (and isn't renewing their contract with, BTW).

[kestrel91316]

5. Just two questions before every gets their panties in a wad:

1) How much electricity is saved by burning one of these CFLs over its lifetime?
2) Assuming coal is burned to generate said electricity, how much mercury is released into somebody else's backyard by burning said coal?

I would venture a guess that it's a hell of a lot more than 5 mg. But it's in somebody else's backyard, so that makes it perfectly ok. Just can't have any nasty byproducts of technology anywhere near the homes of those who most use it........

[Massacure]

7. Two answers

A 13 watt CFL produces about the same amount of light as a 60 watt incandescent bulb. So over the life of the bulb (about 10,000 hours) it saves about 470,000 watt-hours of electricity, or 470 kilowatt-hours. Using wikipedia's statistic that a kilogram of coal can produce two kilowatt-hours of electricity, one CFL prevents the burning of 235 kilograms of coal. The only statistic I can find for mercury content of coal is a half part per million which they claim is the highest amount of mercury that can be found in coal. If we trust it, then those 235 kilograms of coal contain 117.5 milligrams of mercury.

I'm not familiar with how many of those 117.5 milligrams would be removed by pollution controls on power plants.

[kestrel91316]

9. Wow. Thank you for doing the math. CFLs are obviously WAAAYYY

better than incandescents with respect to Hg emissions, particularly if the bulbs are properly disposed of.

[OKIsItJustMe]

8. Unfortunately, while it's more, it's not "a hell of a lot more."

http://www.energyrace.com/commentary/more_on_mercury_coal_and_cfls_updated/
http://www.gcvirginia.org/content/gcva/epafactsheet-cfl1.pdf


http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/promotions/change_light/downloads/Fact_Sheet_Mercury.pdf

[kestrel91316]

10. But when you're all done with the bulb, the Hg is still neatly contained within it.

As opposed to being scattered all over somebody else's back yard.

[OKIsItJustMe]

11. Yes, absolutely

I'm a proponent of CFL's. My house is full of them. I've had them long enough that I've begun to replace them in heavily used areas.

[TreasonousBastard]

12. Dammit, when will this story go away? EVERY...

fluorescent tube ever made has mercury in it. So do some high intensity discharge lamps, most sodium lamps and many other commercial lamps.

So, those 4' tubes in your kitchen and basement and every office and restaurant, the 8 footers in every large retail store, and the U-lines in your doctor's waiting rooms ALL HAVE MERCURY IN THEM!

Billions of fluorescent tubes already out there with (gasp!) mercury in them! Oh the humanity!

So, ummm, where's the outcry about all those other tubes we've been happily tossing into landfills for years? And, btw, what about those little watch batteries?

Fact is-- most CFLs have very small amounts of mercury, and are easier to properly dispose of than the tubes. Newer landfills are also much better at keeping nasties out of the environment. Our new "transfer station" (once was simply the town dump) even has a whole fluorescent disposal section over in the corner.

So, ummm, who's really behind this latest bit of fearmongering?

[GreenPartyVoter]

13. Thanks for this reply of common sense

[Dogmudgeon]

15. We need a major recycling program.

I've been saying that for some time, and I consider myself to be a Johnny-come-lately.

Promoting CFLs has greatly increased the use of mercury, and the results from various bans on incandescent bulbs will increase it even more. Mercury is more toxic than most people realize. The amount of mercury gas in a reduced-mercury CFL can contaminate hundreds of gallons of water.

An enlarged recycling program, funded somewhat like the old soda-bottle deposit system, would allow us to deal with ALL kinds of toxic consumer waste, including conventional fluorescents, discarded electronic equipment, and the hundreds of millions of CRT TV sets that will start showing up in dumps next spring. Consumer electronics is a major environmental threat, containing lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic, and other biochemical exotica. Even in countries with strict RoHS policies, the effluvia can poison a lot of aquifer. No fearmongering is necessary, simply an awareness of the problem and a desire to remedy it.

Why not just go "whole hog" and develop a funded, profit-making waste-stream recycling industry? In other words, like our moms and dads taught us, cleaning up after ourselves -- electronics, plastics, glass, metal, damn near everything -- ?

--p!

[TreasonousBastard]

16. No question we should recycle more and waste less, but...

that's a lot easier said than done. NYC pretty much gave up on recycling a while back because the whole thing got out of hand.

My town had to close the dump years ago and built a transfer station and recycling center. You buy yellow town bags for garbage, and there are areas for paper, cardboard, glass, plastic, metal, and oil, paint and other toxic stuff. And fluorescent lights. Cost you 25 bucks to drop off an old air conditioner or refrigerator, but you know the CFCs will be dealt with properly. There are quarterly electronic pickups for old cellphones, computers and clock radios. Several companies will pick up your trash and recyclables if you think you're too good to go to the dump yourself.

So, as easy as they made it to recycle here, it's still not close to 100%. I know one person who drives his trash to work and dumps it there so he doesn't have to buy the yellow bags. And the yellow bags do happily take everything you don't want to sort out into the recycling bins-- no one checks what's in them.

It would take a massive Federal intiative to get everyone on board to cut waste and recycle, more along the lines of some of the better European efforts, but we haven't seen the political will for anything like that.