Warning! Energy Efficent Light Bulbs contain Mercury.

3688 Views 34 Replies 19 Participants Last post by AquaNerd, Oct 17, 2007

knuggs

Discussion Starter · Oct 2, 2007

Do not throw new energy saving lightbulbs in the regular trash. They need to be taken to the hazzard waste site. They contain mercury.

We do not need mercury contaminating our drinking water supply.

1 - 20 of 35 Posts

Canoe2Can

· #2 · Oct 2, 2007

That's where some of these global warming nuts fall short. They say we should all switch to CFL bulbs, but they contain mercury. They say we should all drive hybrids, but they use great big batteries full of other hazardous chemicals.

That ought to throw some gasoline on the old global warming fire (But seriously, these things are not the panacea Al Gore says they are!)

knuggs

Discussion Starter · #3 · Oct 2, 2007

You would expect them to think befored they leaped. Now this product is being push in everyones face (especially Wal-Mart). This is worse than greenhouse gases. What ever happened to Tesla's Coil?

As for hybrids, ethanol is going to jack prices up on everything across the board. Those you have to charge a battery that energy has to come from somewhere (power and energy plants). Is that why we need to use the new bulbs, its counteractive. Why not hydrogen what happend there? I hear talks about an air driven automobile. Using compressed air. Could you use pure oxygen it is combustable?

Blacksunshine

· #4 · Oct 2, 2007

Umm.. You do realize that it says that right on the package right? So is it a bad product or are people just to stupid to dispose of them properly? They are more energy efficent. So long as as people don't toss them the wrong way theres no prob.

Algenco

· #5 · Oct 2, 2007

there was a news story recently, Seems a woman dropped and broke one in her daughters bedroom, ended up costing $1200 for the hazmat crew to do the cleanup:icon_eek:

knuggs

Discussion Starter · #6 · Oct 2, 2007

They just now started putting warnings on them, some still don't have a label. How many people really recycle, theres not a majority.

Blacksunshine

· #7 · Oct 2, 2007

but still this is not a fault in the product its a fault in ourselves.

octopus44

· #8 · Oct 3, 2007

Here is a good article on snopes.com regarding compact fluorescents

http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/cfl.asp

sandiegoryu

· #9 · Oct 3, 2007

Oh crap. I broke one of those... for this homework assignment for english... no wonder I felt kind of woozy. Good thing it was only 5 miligrams hehe. Well anyway, there you go. Just go ahead and burn the hell out of everything with incandescent bulbs and throw them away, when you could go buy a flourescent bulb, pay less electricity, pay less for replacement bulbs, and drag your ass to a toxic waste depot to dispose of the dead bulbs.

And thanks for the message knuggs. I'll keep them with my batteries (yah you can't throw those away either).

KevinC

· #10 · Oct 3, 2007

You have to realize that most of our electricity comes from burning coal . . . which contains mercury . . . which the power companies allow to fly up the smokestack . . . Our environment now has lots of mercury in it - mercury also bioaccumulates (so top predators like tuna, swordfish, and shark get the most). Check your state DNR for fish consumption advisories - you will probably find mercury advisories on lots of fish in lots of locations.

Using a CFL decreases your electricity usage. So, if you don't break it and you do recycle it, there should be less mercury in the environment than if you used incandescents.

Don't forget about the mercury switch in thermostats! There must be others out there who played with mercury growing up . . . and I'm not all that old.

Kevin

ringram

· #11 · Oct 3, 2007

Exactly. It's a fault in people who are to lazy, can't read or just don't care. My wife and I recycle pretty much everything (paper, cardboard, plastic, glass, aluminum and other stuff like engine oil, batteries and light bulbs)...well, we just make sure they don't get thrown in the trash. We had a rather disturbing discovery on the side of our house behind the trash cans a while back. It seems that someone had a car battery and an empty/dried out can of paint on the side of our house (as in the previous owner). Sure, we should have noticed it, but we didn't b/c it was mostly buried. That stuff can contaminate the soil around, right? Depending on how long it's been there.
Sorry, not trying to hijack. Just got on a roll there...

-Ryan

Blacksunshine said:
but still this is not a fault in the product its a fault in ourselves.

swylie

· #12 · Oct 3, 2007

ringram said:
We had a rather disturbing discovery on the side of our house behind the trash cans a while back. It seems that someone had a car battery and an empty/dried out can of paint on the side of our house (as in the previous owner). Sure, we should have noticed it, but we didn't b/c it was mostly buried. That stuff can contaminate the soil around, right?

A sealed car battery should be very safe. They're designed to stay sealed and not leak inside your car, right? Lead-acid batteries can be recycled safely and easily, at least if you're in a first-world company. Compared to paint, battery recycling is trivial. Also, if the paint can was dried out before it was buried, or if it was liquid but never leaked, you're likewise just fine.

Likewise (and I agree with you here, I'm aiming my comments at previous posters) the mercury in fluorescent bulbs is a non-issue unless you try to clean up a broken bulb with your tongue. The worst case scenario for fluorescents releases less mercury into the environment than the best-case scenario for incandescents. Assuming, of course, that one doesn't smash fluorescent bulbs for the fun of it, and assuming that we retain our massive reliance on coal-fired electrical generation. All of these risks are real, but they're manageable.

See less See more

Canoe2Can

· #13 · Oct 3, 2007

It's a shame that LED bulbs are not more readily available and affordable. If I remember correctly from an episode of Mythbusters, LEDs are ten times as efficient as CFLs. Unfortunately, they're also about 20 times as expensive and hard to find.

Wasserpest

· #14 · Oct 3, 2007

Canoe2Can said:
If I remember correctly from an episode of Mythbusters, LEDs are ten times as efficient as CFLs.

That seems a bit far-fetched... LED's don't approach the efficiency of fluorescents (lumen per watt) yet.

Big advantages of LEDs is the long life span, which can make up some of the upfront cost. Plus, the directional light helps in certain applications.

Just DON'T replace a 30W Halogen bulb with a 3W LED bulb and expect to get the same light intensity.

This is a nice place to do some LED shopping... I replaced my car interior lights, and I switched my living room lights over to 3W Luxeon bulbs.

Canoe2Can

· #15 · Oct 3, 2007

Well, it's been a while since I've seen that episode, but I'm pretty sure LEDs were about 10 times more efficient. Of course, they may not have been dealing with two bulbs that produced the same amount of light. I'll have to try to catch that one again. It was the episode where they tested the "leave your lights on all the time because turning them off and on consumes more power" myth. It was busted by the way.

I checked out that website. With some of their products they put up a comparison that "This only costs $.06 to run 24 hours a day for a month compared to $4.32 for a 100 Watt incandescent." That's 72 times more efficient. Flourescents can't match that.

Wasserpest

· #16 · Oct 3, 2007

Be careful with advertisements... Sure a LED will cost you 100x less to run, and if you shine it in your eye, it will be just as bright as the incandescent. But will in light up the entire room equally? :smile:

knuggs

Discussion Starter · #17 · Oct 4, 2007

Great site Wasserpest. Good prices. I don't know if they would light up a entire room, but I'm going to try it out. You could use up to 10-3wtt LEDs to equal the 30w, candle power/LED power. So how much brighter would three together be? To bad I don't have the tool to read the lumen.I would never use it for a aquarium, not yet,only moonlight. I would definetly use them in my home. Matter fact I'm going to start by lighting my bedroom and go from there. I don't know why this hasn't been pushed into more homes, same with skylights. Skylights are only a one time fee and if your building a new home why wouldn't ya.

Canoe2Can

· #18 · Oct 4, 2007

Wasserpest said:
That seems a bit far-fetched... LED's don't approach the efficiency of fluorescents (lumen per watt) yet.

After a bit of investigation, it seems the consensus is that LEDs are not yet as efficient as flourescents, though there are anedotes to the contrary. According to Dept. of Energy, they should be the best option within 20 years. Like computers, the technology is advancing rapidly.

Maybe we need one of those engineers now to give us the real skinny.

Blacksunshine

· #19 · Oct 4, 2007

Wasserpest said:
That seems a bit far-fetched... LED's don't approach the efficiency of fluorescents (lumen per watt) yet.

Big advantages of LEDs is the long life span, which can make up some of the upfront cost. Plus, the directional light helps in certain applications.

Just DON'T replace a 30W Halogen bulb with a 3W LED bulb and expect to get the same light intensity.

This is a nice place to do some LED shopping... I replaced my car interior lights, and I switched my living room lights over to 3W Luxeon bulbs.

Thank you for that link to that page. When its time to swap the cars lights that might be the place to hit up.

lemonlime

· #20 · Oct 5, 2007

~5milligrams of mercury in 1 CFL with a 10000hr lifespan is far less then 1 incandescent with no mercury. Taking into account CFL 3-4x more efficient, and last ten times as long, transportation, power plant emissions etc etc.

I read that GE is developing a next generation incandescent that is comparable to CFL in efficiency, which would be swell. LEDs are also exciting.

Perhaps you have read the warnings about mercury in fish? /hand on heart.. this isn't because people are dumping CFLs in the ocean!

1 - 20 of 35 Posts

This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.