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May 15, 2007 Money-saving bulbs low energy bulbs? (updated)
One of the several CFL light bulbs in my house stopped working last night. This is maybe the fourth or fifth CFL bulb in my house that has lasted less than a year, despite the claims of advocates that they have a longer life than incandescent bulbs. They certainly cost a lot more money to buy or replace, so I suspect that I have saved nothing, and may indeed be losing money. Not to mention all the energy expended in manufacturing the complex bulbs.
This is the first one to burn out since I learned that they contain 4-5 mg of mercury. I am not going to just throw it in the trash. I don't want it breaking and spewing mercury into my trash can, and certainly don't want the mercury going to a landfull, and eventually into the water table. So, I am going to have to call up the City of Berkeley and see if they have any programs to safely handle CFLs. Apparently California law only mandates that they
Berkeley, being a special place inhabited by special people, is rarely content to be as holy as everbody else, though. We'll see what they say. In the meantime, there is progress to report in the development of a much more promising low energy technology: light-emitting diodes. The Olla Project is a European initiative to develop so-called organic light-emitting diodes capable of producing white light. Their latest press release concerns to production of a prototype. Our writing on the problematic aspects of CFLs has apparently attracted their attention, and they have been in touch with us. So we will do our best to stay on top of this far more advanced technology, which seems to have far more satisfactory prospects. There is nothing wrong and much right with saving energy. But banning the incandescent bulb is the wrong way to go. Forcing a transition to flawed and dangerous technology is always silly, though of course such top-down mandates appeal to the commissars among us. Update: Ed Waage has done my research for me (thanks, Ed!): Regarding your expired CFL's, The Berkeley website says you have to take these bulbs to a recycling center called the Community Conservation Center. Also, California law apparently states that all fluorescent bulbs, including CFL's, must be taken to a hazardous waste collection facility. There is also an interesting statistic that
If you are concerned about the carbon footprint is for driving these bulbs to a collection facility, consider this. If each person took two bulbs, that is almost 8 million vehicle trips at say 10 miles each or 80 million miles per year which is about 4 million gallons of gas. Each gallon of gas produces 20 pounds of CO2 so we get 80 million pounds or 40,000 tons of CO2. In addition, California law is (no surprises here) more stringent than Federal. Here is a FAQ snippet from The Toxic Substances Control Dept:
So California is more concerned about mercury than the Feds. But, because of the additional automobile trips, the stricter California standards result in more global warming (if one believes Al Gore). Maybe the Critical Mass bike riders could take on fluorescent bulb recycling as a civic project.
Update: Doug Ross helpfully unearths federal guidelines for what to do if you break a CFL bulb: Perhaps as a public service Wal-Mart and other retailers can stock hazmat suits in the light bulb section of their stores. |
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