Mercury Contamination Vs. Energy-Efficient Lightbulbs

phyrebyrd writes "How much money does it take to screw in a compact fluorescent lightbulb? About US$4.28 for the bulb and labor — 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."

How about LEDs then

[WormholeFiend]

What's the pollution/contamination potential for LED-equivalent screw-in bulbs? (Including at the manufacturing level)

Re:How about LEDs then

[malfunct]

I think that there is no Mecury in LED's and need not be any lead the LED's are a win over CFL's in that department. The downside is that currently LED's are either far more expensive or far less bright than CFL's. I looked into it the other day and found that its $30 for a 20 lumen (compared to about 200 lumen for 60W incandecent) LED light bulb and its light was highly directional so not appropriate for standard overhead lighting.

Steven Milloy

[Profane MuthaFucka]

He's the Junk Science guy, which means that you ought to take this entire article with a mountain of salt. Even with the mercury in the CFL, you're ahead of the game when you consider the energy savings. A lot of electricity is produced with coal, and that puts out more mercury than the CFL contains over the life of the bulb.

But there's a lesson here - if you break a CFL, open the windows and clean it up yourself. Don't lick the floor where it broke. Don't gnaw on the pieces of broken glass. Don't scrape the coating from the inside of the bulb, dissolve it in vodka, and inject it into your neck. Use common sense.

There's no need to call the government to help you clean up a broken lightbulb. This woman deserves what she gets, just for wasting people's time. The bureaucrats probably don't want to mess with her house either, but they are *doing what they are paid to do* and if they didn't take care of the reported problem, someone could accuse them of not doing their job.

Re:How about LEDs then

[networkBoy]

Very low pollution. Most FABs emit water cleaner than they take it in. LEDs can be produced lead free, and indium arsenic levels are exceptionally low.
-nB

Re:Lets get this out of the way.

[Archon-X]

I purposely went and bought the most expensive one[s] I could find to try to avoid any potential problems, perhaps I just got a bad brand / type.

The ones I have don't flicker, but have a 30-40 second warm up period, which would be fine if it was an office environment - but in a house - you generally stumble into a room, and flick on the light to avoid tripping over shit, but with the CFLs, you get to vaguely see what you just stubbed your toe on...

Down the Rabbit Hole we go!

[OctoberSky]

Have you ever heard the term "Mad as a Hatter"? Maybe, but you probably do know who the Mad Hatter is.

Mad as a Hatter is a term that stems from "Hatters" (hat makers) using Mercury in the formation of hats. It was used in the process of removing hair from animal hides. All the hatters ultimately went insane or had the other symptons of mercury poisioning.

That's where the term comes from, and that's where the idea for the "Mad Hatter" came from for Alice in Wonderland. What does this have to do with the article? Nothing really, just trying to spread some random information.

The original article is much less strident

[Peter Simpson]

and includes comments from several officials, saying that this incident was nothing to get worked up about.
http://ellsworthmaine.com/site/index.php?option=co m_content&task=view&id=7446&Itemid=31 [ellsworthmaine.com]

And for those who are concerned about CFL mercury in the waste stream -- CFLs are nothing more than smaller versions of the fluorescent tubes we have been throwing in our landfills since the 50s. That's right, every industial building and school in the US uses them and has for the last 50 years. So, the problem isn't new. And the white powder isn't mercury...it's the phosphor. That's not to say that recycling them wouldn't be a really good idea. It's being done commercially, but not yet for consumers in most places.

Re:Does anyone else

[EvanED]

Some have horrible colors and a relatively long (.5 to 1 second) warm up time

To be fair, some (like the one in my bathroom) have a 1/2 turn on time but then a very long (~1 minute) warm up time. It comes on bright enough (maybe like a 50W incandescent), but after being on for close to a minute it suddenly ramps over a few seconds up to probably 150% of its previous brightness, then stays there.

It's a little weird, but it's not too bad.

(These are made by GE, so they aren't Billy Bob's Light Warehouse brand. I'm sure there are better ones, but there are also a lot of worse ones.)

In contrast, the one I have in my living room lamp (Sylvania) is instant on.

The other thing I've done is in my kitchen and bedroom I have fixtures that have two bulbs. I have 1 CFL and 1 incandescent in each.

U$ 2.000 is the environmental cleanup charge

[Acer500]

According to the article, after breaking the lightbulb in her daughter's bedroom, Mrs Bridges called Home Depot which directed her to Poison Control hotline which directed her to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, which sent a specialist.

The specialist found an unacceptable quantity of mercury (six times the "safe" level), and directed Mrs Bridges to a cleanup firm that gave the U$ 2.000 estimate (way high in my opinion, is it that hard to clean?).

Insurance, as usual, won't cover it (sounds reasonable this time).

An interesting point is that each CFL contains five milligrams of mercury, and Maine's "safety" standard is 300 nanograms per cubic meter.

By comparison, according to Wikipedia, "the typical "fever thermometer" contains between 0.5 to 3 g (.3 to 1.7 dr) of elemental mercury."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury-in-glass_ther mometer [wikipedia.org]

She could have saved some money by reading this:

"Cleaning Up Small Mercury Spills, For spills of less than two tablespoons:" by the government of Michigan
http://www.michigan.gov/deq/0,1607,7-135-3307_2969 3_4175-11751--,00.html [michigan.gov]

or this (PDF warning) http://www.newmoa.org/prevention/mercury/smallspil ls.pdf [newmoa.org]

Not every CFL has that much mercury:

http://www.lighting.philips.com/gl_en/news/press/s ustainability/archive_2006/reduction_in_mercury.ph p?main=global&parent=4390&id=gl_en_news&lang=en [philips.com]

Still, it's good to be warned and be aware about the potential environmental hazard.

Re:FUD - UrbanLegend

[Tom Womack]

Certainly there are urban legends around which are propagated by conservative propaganda sites.

But that there are five milligrams of Hg in a compact-fluorescent lightbulb is not one of them; in particular, the link that you provided admits that.

I too have a house full of CFLs - people complaining that 60-watt-equivalent CFLs are too dim are taking slightly the wrong approach, CFLs are so much more efficient than incandescent lights that you can put, into a fitting that can only handle 60 watts of heat, a 23-watt CFL which is equivalent to a 150-watt incandescent. My study is lit with three 23-watt CFLs, which provides a really excellent reading light ... with the low power consumption, you can use cheapest-available desk lamps to put the bulbs in, and place them wherever's convenient.

Re:How about LEDs then

[malfunct]

60W incandecent produces about 900 lumens = 15 lumens/watt

13W CFL produces about 900 lumens = 69.2 lumens/watt

2.5W LED bulb produces about 60 lumens = 24 lumens/watt

So by pure numbers the CFL wins but I think there are other things to take into consideration. The LED has highly directional light so its possible that the LED produces more lumens per sq/in in its cone of coverage so would actually be brighter in that area than the CFL which casts light every which way. This would mean that there are applications where the LED would be more efficient due to the fact that a CFL or incandecent is lighting up a far larger area than necessary. Also the LED light should last much longer than the CFL which may be a win. Add to that the fact that I don't think there are the same level of hazadrous wastes in LED's it lets you play some interesting cost/benefit games.

Re:They claim longer life, but not true in practic

[Steveftoth]

The problem is that the fluorescent bulbs have only so many power-on/off cycles in them. they last much longer if you don't turn them on/off all the time and just leave them on constantly. However, in a home environment that is less likely. Especially since people have been trained to shut off lights when leaving rooms to save electricity.

I really don't have a good solution to this problem. I don't know if there is, maybe automatic controls of the lights that don't turn off so much?

Re:bullshit

[rs79]

Did you check out the "credentials" of the FA author and his friends? You'll find things like global warming doesn't exists, junk food is good for you, it's healthy to be fat and so on and so forth.

It's big busines' wet dream website.

Wonder whose paying him?

Re:Hazmat

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol, same. Although I'm probably a bit younger then you: We had a jar full of mercury and weren't supposed to roll it around on our tables. But on one of the tables the lid "came off accidentally". By the end of class we were crawling around with rulers trying to get the stuff back together.

Good stuff.

Hybrid bubs?

[Beer_Smurf]

Maybe there needs to be a combo bulb/fixture that uses LEDs to fill in during the warm up of the compact fluorescent?

Re:bullshit

[MadAhab]

I think you are 100 percent correct. "Well isn't any amount too much?" No, really 100 watchits is really pretty safe. "But wouldn't it be safer if we required 10 or less?" Well, theoretically, but statistically "10 it is!".

They recently doubled the amount of radon detected indoors is deemed to be safe. Unless you're getting a safety inspection for a house sale, you won't hear much about this, however.

Re:No, I buy nice ones.

[eonlabs]

Anyone want to test all the walmarts in the country.
I'm pretty certain that at least one flourescent or compact flourescent bulb has been broken there in the last year.

Any thoughts on the potential for every place selling these things to be a considerable hazardous waste zone?

Note this is considerable with respect to the room in TFA

Re:No, I buy nice ones.

[eln]

So my choices are:

1.) Buy an incandescent, 4 for a buck. I can buy these just about anywhere. Frequent changing, but extremely cheap.
2.) Buy a cheap CFL. Harsh light that gives me headaches, more expensive, but much less frequent changing. I can also buy these just about anywhere.
3.) Go to a special lighting store where I can spend a bunch of time trying to find the perfect bulb, then spend a load of money on each one. Every time I want to replace a bulb, I have to go back to that store. I cannot simply put light bulbs on the grocery list.

I think I'll stick with the first option.
 

Just something to think about.

[Anonymous Coward]

I see a few stating "It is a small amount" or "She could clean it up her self", etc.

Try this, CFL's are becoming more popular with growers (Weed). They are small, compact, put out a lot of light with vary little heat, and you can get them in a spectrum that is right for good growth and flowering. So, how would you feel about the bulb breaking over a grow of weed that you were going to smoke??? If you don't smoke weed, there is a good chance that some one you know does or that your kids will try it. Here is a point where this contamination could get directly into your system!!!

Just to up the ante a little, I have grown, I have grown with CFL's and they have broken over the plants! I personally got rid of the plants that this happened to because I was going to smoke them. But this was for personal use, I know a few people that would have finished the grow, sold the bud, and not cared!

Re:No, I buy nice ones.

[ZeeExSixAre]

I don't know if it was just me, but if you guys remember that scene in The 40-year-Old Virgin where they're breaking fluorescent tubes against each other's legs, then shouldn't all the actors in that scene be dead with how much mercury was floating around there?

Re:Lets get this out of the way.

[berashith]

without anything solid to back this up, I will give you the expanation that I have received for this exact question.

The amount of mercury in the compact flourescent bulb is less than the amount of mercury used in the creation and powering of incandescent bulbs over their lifetime. There is a potential hidden advantage to the compact bulb in that the mercury is contained, which is less harmful than the mercury spewed into the air by the power plant that powered the older bulb.

Less than perfect, but a good start and better than doing nothing.

Disposal?

[norminator]

We looked at buying some CFL bulbs the other day. My wife is a little paranoid about some things, including mercury, so she isn't too sure about using the CFL's. But I thought it's interesting how on the boxes they say that they contain mercury, and to dispose of them properly. How do you dispose of mercury properly? I once had a mercury thermometer that broke open and made a mess, so I called around to a few places, not wanting to just drop it in the trash. No one could tell me how to dispose of it. The best answer I got was to take it to my local waste transfer station where I left a bag of contaminated items, including carpet, with a pile of what looked like chemical cleaners and stuff. I think I even had to pay a small fee.

A few months later, my kids fried our microwave oven. Again, I tried to find out what the best way to dispose of a microwave is. Noone would give me a straight answer. I don't even know what exactly is in a microwave, but I'm sure there's some stuff that shouldn't be in the groundwater supply. I ended up tossing it in a dumpster, because I couldn't get any answers.

I think it's great that Wal-mart and others are pushing CFL's, but I wish there was more information available about how to get rid of old bulbs like this. And batteries. Global Warming is important, but I think that slowly poisoning our soil and water isn't a good thing, either. But the manufacturers wash their hands of it all by saying "Dispose of Properly". So how do I dispose of it?

Re:Where to get objective info?

[Scrameustache]

and what about the so-called "Clean Coal", which presumably reduces the amount of mercury pollution?

Bullshit propaganda from the coal mine owners who do not want to see their profits decrease in favour of renewable energy.

If you believe coal salesmen when they tell you coal is clean energy, then I have a bridge to sell you.

"I'm from the government, I'm here to help you"

[argent]

The mistake was calling in the DEP in the first place.

EPA says "If a CFL breaks in your home, open nearby windows to disperse any vapor that may escape, carefully sweep up the fragments (do not use your hands) and wipe the area with a disposable paper towel to remove all glass fragments. Do not use a vacuum. Place all fragments in a sealed plastic bag and follow disposal instructions above."

I wonder if she has a thermostat in the house, with a mercury tilt switch? How about a digital (or quartz) watch, or any other device containing batteries containing mercury? Maybe a crib monitor?

Every now and then I've had an alkaline or nicad battery burst and release fumes. Should I have called the EPA and got a cleanup? Should I quit using battery-powered devices?

Re:Does anyone else

[Scrameustache]

It's just you.
Popular Mechanics tested a bunch of CFL bulbs against incandescents

It's not just him, those freakin things feel to me like someone is scraping the inside of my retina with a rusty spork.

And I followed your link, they tested against ONE incadescent, not "incadescents", you little misleader you.

Worry about Amazonian gold miners instead...

[b0bby]

I remember years ago watching a program about Amazonian gold miners. They were extracting gold from sediment by mixing in mercury, which would bind to the tiny particles. Once they had a nice blob of amalgam, they would burn off the mercury with a blowtorch, leaving behind a nugget. They were evaporating gallons of mercury each, and breathing it - I can't imaging what they were doing to their own health, as well as their environment. It was appalling.
 

Re:TFA seems to have a bias against CFL's

[Russil Wvong]

Steven Milloy isn't a reporter, he's a lobbyist who's worked for the tobacco industry (arguing that second-hand smoke is a myth) and the oil industry (ditto for global warming). This is an op-ed, not a news article.

From SourceWatch [sourcewatch.org]:

Milloy has spent much of his life as a lobbyist for major corporations and trade organisations which have poisoning or polluting problems. He originally ran NEPI (National Environmental Policy Institute).... NEPI was dedicated to transforming both the EPA and the FDA, and challenging the cost of Superfund toxic cleanups....

NEPI was also associated with the AQSC (Air Quality Standards Coalition) which was devoted to emasculating Clean Air laws. This organisation took up the cry of "we need sound science" from the chemical industry as a way to counter claims of pollution -- and Milloy became involved in what became known as the "sound-science" movement. Its most effective ploy was to label science not beneficial to the large funding corporations as "junk"....

The article was sensible until...

[Irvu]

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.

For those unfamiliar with superfund it requires, and pays for, cleanup of truly hazardous sites in the U.S. ranging from large-scale toxic spills (e.g. Love Canal New York) to military disposal sites and deliberate poisoning of the drinking water with nuclear waste (e.g. Project Chariot). [wikipedia.org]

Such waste has often been produced by or with the support of the federal government in communities that have little resources to combat the problems. Dismissing it out of hand is only possible for those who've never been exposed to it and who don't care about the lives of others.

But then of course there's this:

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.

CEI is a neoliberal thinktank that has been outspoken against any governmental environmental policy including action on global warming once stating that: "reducing these levels [Creenhouse gas emmissions], even in "baby steps," would "result in the deaths of more people in the U.S. than global warming would worldwide"

See also:

In May 2006, CEI released a controversial ad campaign with two television commercials [6] arguing that global warming is not a problem. The commercials used the tagline "Carbon Dioxide - They call it pollution; We call it life." One ad stated that the world's glaciers are "growing, not melting... getting thicker, not thinner."[4] The ad cited two Science articles to support its claims. However, the editor for Science stated that the ad "misrepresents the conclusions of the two cited Science papers... by selective referencing". The author of the articles, Curt Davis, director of the Center for Geospatial Intelligence at the University of Missouri-Columbia, said CEI was misrepresenting his previous research to back their claims. "These television ads are a deliberate effort to confuse and mislead the public about the global warming debate," he said. [7]

The above was taken from ElWiki [wikipedia.org]

Re:Does anyone else

[mattatwork]

Probably a nice legal portfolio.... What gets me is that they're only replacing the T8 and T12 bulbs [wikipedia.org]. There is nothing about using led technology to replace the compact flourescent bulbs [wikipedia.org], which are just as popular if not more than the long, narrow T-8' or T-12's. It would be nice to have a solution for the whole spectrum of mercury filled flourescent bulb line up!

I question the source

[monkeywork]

Steven Milloy is hardly one who should be taken seriously on environmental / health issues. Read more about the offer of the article by visiting wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Milloy [wikipedia.org]

Energystar.gov has a PDF file up about CFLs and describes that the broken glass is more dangerous to you than the mercury and provides the following disposal advice:

Like paint, batteries, thermostats, and other hazardous household items, CFLs should be disposed of properly. Do not throw CFLs away in your household garbage if better disposal options exist. To find out what to do first check the following website: www.earth911.org where you can find disposal options by using your zip code (*see detailed instructions at the end of this document) or by calling 1-877- EARTH911 for local disposal options. Another option is to check directly with your local waste management agency for recycling options and disposal guidelines in your community. Additional information is available at www.lamprecycle.org. Finally, IKEA stores take

http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/promotions/c hange_light/downloads/Fact_Sheet_Mercury.pdf [energystar.gov]

Re:Does anyone else

[SatanicPuppy]

Easy to say when you can't see this massive coal power plant [google.com] from your house.

Well, technically I can't see it from my house, just the massive plumes of crap it puts out.

If you follow the train tracks in the satellite image you can see a train pulling away from the literal mountain 'o coal...Those trains come by every day. Care to speculate on how many lightbulbs worth of mercury is in one of those 100+ car trains?

Re:Disposal?

[Firethorn]

I'm hoping they eventually make it a requirement for stores that sell the bulbs to accept them back for disposal.

It'd be incredibly inefficient to try to turn every department, grocery, hardware, and convienence store into a recycling center.

It'd be far more efficient to mount a can or box on the garbage truck and have you stick it outside in a bag beside the can. Heck, include small battery disposal in the same service. You'll want them in seperate containers simply because CFLs are fairly fragile and batteries are heavy. By not having special days, you can dispose of them whenever, so volume stays low and people are less likely to just chuck them into the trash.

BTW, I have some flourescent tubes to dispose of. The fixture was of a non-standard size and had failing ballasts, so I replaced the whole thing. I'll be calling the waste disposal company tommorow(during business hours) to find out the disposal instructions.

Re:Look at the Source

[ChuckleBug]

It isn't because he "ever had anything to do with industry." He's up to his neck in it. junkscience.com is just that: junk. It's the worst purpotedly "scientific" web site I've ever seen. Nothing but right-wing crap. This isn't a criticism of anyone conservative, it's aimed specifically at the site's author.

It's really stupid to take a criticism of one person based on that person's track record, and try to turn it into criminalization of another viewpoint. That kind of persecution complex is typical of right wing hacks.

The site's blantant biases are well documented. I'm not going to rehash it here.