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."

Comments

bullshit

[Lehk228]

a 170 gram can of tuna containst aboul half the mercury as a CF bulb, and YOU EAT THE TUNA. this is either a scam or a fake article.

Re:bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

The High Quality CFL's produced today have amalgam filling that prevents this. Also studies have found that a standard Incandescent bulb puts 10 times as much mercury into the environment because of coal power consumption.

Re:bullshit

[Tom Womack]

The permitted mercury content of tuna in Canada is 0.5 part per million, so a 170-gram tin contains at most 85 micrograms of the stuff, about a factor sixty less than the lightbulb.

I think this is more a story about how good we are at detecting minuscule quantities of material, and how political requirements tend to be of the form that the allowable amount of a dangerous material should be a small multiple of the detection limit; I would wager that the health damage caused by the stress of being told to find two thousand dollars to decontaminate your living room is significantly greater than any that could possibly be caused by five milligrams of mercury vapour.

Re:bullshit

[aardvarkjoe]

a 170 gram can of tuna containst aboul half the mercury as a CF bulb, and YOU EAT THE TUNA. this is either a scam or a fake article.

Despite the moderators who think that this is informative, it's false. According to http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~frf/sea-mehg.html, canned albacore tuna has a mercury concentration of about 0.353 ppm. The "canned, light" tuna is listed as being about a third of that, but I'll go with the higher number to give you the benefit of the doubt. Working it out, that means that 170 grams of canned tuna has about 60 micrograms of mercury. That is about 1.2% as much as the 5 milligrams of mercury in a typical CF bulb -- nowhere close to 50%

Re:bullshit

[Scrameustache]

this is either a scam or a fake article. The author works at junkscience, a propaganda effort started by tobacco companies to deny they cause cancer, and co-opted recently by other corporate evils to spread their own lies.

Re:bullshit

[aardvarkjoe]

Hm. So the guy above me makes a blatantly false claim, I (and several others) point out that he is wrong, and back it up with real facts -- and that makes me clueless. Slashdot debate at its finest.

FUD - UrbanLegend

[lupine]

This is an urban legend propagated by conservative propaganda sites. Good thing we have editors to filter this stuff out for us...

There is very little mercury in CFLs, you are in more danger of getting cut by the glass than you are of getting mercury poisoning.
http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/promotions/c hange_light/downloads/Fact_Sheet_Mercury.pdf

I switched my house to CFLs and started saving $15-20 per month. If everyone did this then the big power companies would see a dent in their bottom line and so they start spreading lies like this.

Re:FUD - UrbanLegend

[wfberg]

people complaining that 60-watt-equivalent CFLs are too dim are taking slightly the wrong approach

On the contrary - producers of CFLs are engaging in false labelling. An 11W CFL I picked up puts out (according to its specifications) 550 Lumen of light, whereas a 60W incandescent I had lying about puts out 690 Lumen according to the box; that's 25% more! No wonder people feel cheated. Yes, you could switch to higher wattage CFL bulbs, but that doesn't change the fact you were lied to.

I'm also sceptical about the energy savings. Yes, you'll pay less in electricity bills, but the energy that isn't being converted into light is converted into heat. So getting rid of incandescents could increase your heating bill. Of course not all of the heat incandescents put out will be useful (close to the ceiling, heating up the lamp itself, or outdoors) but you cant simply substract 11 from 60 and take that number as the Watts-per-hour saved.

Lets get this out of the way.

[Anonymous Coward]

No it isn't just you. About 50 people say this whenever the words "compact" "florescent" or "lightbulb" come up in an article. And the answer is spend more money. Yes, that's right... the cheapest possible bulbs kinda suck, big surprise. Some brands of compact florescent lightbulbs have no warm up period and give off perfectly balanced light in the visible spectrum and don't flicker at a visible frequency. Other brands take an hour to warm up, have green light, and flicker at 50Hz.

The challenge is finding the cheapest one that you can't tell from a "normal" bulb. Once you do... well then you RTFA for more worries, it seems.

Re:Lets get this out of the way.

[freefrag]

Furthermore, there are no equivalent CFLs for high-power lights, such as 200W floods. I would *love* to get CFLs with, say, 200-400W equivalent light output. You're welcome. http://www.energyfederation.org/loa/default.php/cP ath/2050_25_173_727_1479

Re:Lets get this out of the way.

[Teun]

As an often times admirer of things American I usually don't like comments that say "You must be American", but I'm afraid I can't avoid it here.

In Europe we've always had much more expensive energy than you guys in the USofA and by consequence we've for many years been keen adopters of money savers like these bulbs.
At the same time we've grown used to separating our waste and disposing of it in a safe way.
In (Continental!) Western Europe landfills are now the exception. Fluorescent bulbs have since many years been labelled as hazardous waste and are collected as such, as a matter of fact a retailer selling them has to provide a return point for recycling.

Like other dubious explanations of your constitution you might feel you have the right to dump anything in a landfill but that does not make it wise.

Re:Lets get this out of the way.

[Planesdragon]

Those power plants are still creating the same amount of waste

Basic high school physics time: energy not used from the grid remains on the grid, and typically causes generators to produce less because demand is lower, which means less mercury used.

The same thing happens, btw, when you, oh, plug in a few heavy-draw devices into your car's electrical system. (A DVD -playing laptop, an electric cooler, and, oh, an electric heater). Your alternator will draw more power, causing more fuel to be spent, lowering your fuel effeciency. If you don't have special equipment, you won't likely notice it. But the effect is still there.

Re:Does anyone else

[Vellmont]

Is that just me?

Yes and no. Your problem is you're grouping all CF bulbs together. Some have horrible colors and a relatively long (.5 to 1 second) warm up time. Others are quite close to incandescents in color, and have an effectively instant warm up time.

Re:There is no free lunch, kids

[PsychosisC]

The article is a bit too one-sided on the mercury issue.

From CFL's wiki entry:

Note that coal power plants are the "the largest uncontrolled industrial source of mercury emissions in Canada". According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), (when coal power is used) the mercury released from powering an incandescent bulb for five years exceeds the total of (a) the mercury released by powering a comparably luminous CFL for the same period and (b) the mercury contained in the lamp. It should be noted, however that the "EPA is implementing policies to reduce airborne mercury emissions. Under regulations issued in 2005, coal-fired power plants will need to reduce their emissions by 70 percent by 2018.". This change will lengthen the term before CFLs are better than incandescents. If CFLs are recycled and the mercury reclaimed, the equation tilts towards CFLs, and if non-coal sources of electricity are used, the equation tilts toward incandescents.

Check out the Author

[grahamsz]

From http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Steve_M illoy

Steven J. Milloy is a columnist for Fox News and a paid advocate for Phillip Morris, ExxonMobil and other corporations. From the 1990s until the end of 2005, he was an adjunct scholar at the libertarian think tank the Cato Institute.

One large grain of salt coming right up

Schitzoid

[linuxwrangler]

I went to an art-show/Earth Day event a couple blocks from my house Saturday (yes, our town has it a week late). They had representatives of various environmental and recycling organizations.

The sign-in sheet had a place to check a box "pledging" to convert one incandescent lamp to flourescent. So I asked about where to return them when they die. After all, safe and convenient disposal is a critical component of encouraging their use.

Man, you would have thought I was watching roaches scurry when the light came on.

Dump them in the trash? No! - that's illegal dumping of toxic waste.

Save them and take them to the thrice-yearly e-waste event? No! - they are specifically prohibited.

Take them to the recycling center a couple blocks from my house? No! - "We're supposed to be self-supporting and the permit cost would bankrupt us."

Pretty much the only option provided was to wait for the "convenient" once-a-month Saturday the waste facility is open, put the burned-out bulb in my car, drive a half-dozen miles to the waste facility (they were helpful in telling me how to get to the facility while dodging the most dangerous parts of Richmond), wait in line (start/stop engine repeatedly or idle constantly), fill out paperwork, hand them the bulb, drive a half-dozen miles back home.

If that's the best the powers-that-be can come up with, they shouldn't be surprised that CFL adoption is less than they hoped. With cans, bottles and electronics they tack on a recycling fee up-front. And any store that sells ni-cads is required to accept them for recycling. Seems like a couple ideas that should be considered for flourescents.

Re:No, I buy nice ones.

[Internet_Communist]

Yeah, scare-mongering over mercury is pretty common. I remember when I was a kid I used to break open those little glass-tubes from old thermostats and collect the mercury. Safe? Eh, probably not, but I'm still alive and I don't have mercury poisoning. After all, elemental mercury isn't really the dangerous one anyway, it's organic mercury that's really dangerous, like good 'ol dimethylmercury which even a tiny amount will pass right through a pair of rubber gloves and kill you. Elemental mercury? Mercury vapor accumulating is probably the biggest risk, but I can't imagine the tiny amounts in a CFL being that big of a deal. It sounds like from the article that they had found high levels of mercury vapor, though I still question whether a single CFL bulb is enough to cause the amount of contamination the story claims.

Re:No, I buy nice ones.

[Dr Caleb]

"I find this scare-mongering over mercury to be amusing. "

As do I. Why would you HAZMAT a room for 5mg of mercury vapour that will float out the window?

When you break a thermometer:

http://tinyurl.com/2eevmp

or when you break an old school (10mg/HG) tube:

http://tinyurl.com/ytwmqu

Re:Does anyone else

[metamatic]

It's just you.

Popular Mechanics tested a bunch of CFL bulbs against incandescents, and the CFLs scored higher than the incandescents.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/home_journal/home_ improvement/4215199.html?series=15

Re:No, I buy nice ones.

[theNetImp]

Well to play devil's advocate here's information from the State of Michigan on CFLs

http://www.michigan.gov/deq/0,1607,7-135-3585_3006 8_30172-90210--,00.html

Re:Does anyone else

[Carbon Blob]

Here you go!

http://www.ilumisys.com/index.html

Ellsworth American Article

[DMCBOSTON]

She might be a nut. Apparently "She has talked with representatives from the CDC and DEP and spent roughly two to three hours a day over the past several weeks, talking on the phone and in person and contacting local papers to get the word out on what she believes are dangerous light bulbs." She was told they weren't a problem: "Officials have said that Bridges has little to worry about and she could easily clean up the bulbs by hand. State Toxicologist Andrew Smith said it would be unlikely that a person could contract mercury poisoning from the levels of mercury found in Bridges' daughter's room." The Ellsworth American article: http://ellsworthmaine.com/site/index.php?option=co m_content&task=view&id=7446&%20Itemid=31/ Maybe a little common sense is in order here?

Re:LED lights?

[guruevi]

I've read and seen a bunch of calculations.

What I've understood on it is this: The LED's will go about double, maybe triple the lifetime of a CFL. If you get the cheap ones, they will burn out (not enough heat dissipation, too much overdriving). The light will look better sometimes (the reproduced spectrum is smaller though) although for coloring you can't just use a filter, you'll have to get that color of LED (and white/blue/orange are more expensive as is and have less light-upbringing than standard). There is also the issue of controlling them, especially if you combine colors, the current for the different ones do differ. They have about the same power usage for the amount of light put out by a similar CFL (although better ones are being researched) and the angle of the light is usually smaller (again, depending on the product your results might differ). They might be just as heavy on the environment during production (the silicon and other products need refined highly and a bunch of plastic for the lens), disposal however (depending on your stand on the whole mercury debate) might be a little better for the environment than the CFL.

I have gotten the advice over again to use LED's as accent and mood lighting while using CFL's, plain FL's or high-efficient halogen if you want/need a lot of 'natural' light

LEDs will win over Bulbs and Florescents

[Anonymous Coward]

It is inevitable, LEDs are efficient, are not fragile, and can last several decades.
High output LED manufactures such as Phillips/Lumileds who makes Luxeon stars and emitters, are going to thrive in the next 10 years.

Seen it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ive seen this circulating the blog already, and did a little investigating. Turns out some aspects of this story are less then credible.

Lets start with the source of the article, one Steven Milloy - you can see his name is on that particular version of it, as well as some others. A quick background check, placing his name into google, reveals that Steven Milloy is a quite enthusiastic campagigner against climate-change reducing initiatives - ironicly, he labels it 'junk science' - as well as opposed to environmental concerns in general. His wikipedia page goes into more detail. He also runs junkscience.com - just your plain old astroturf site, that will label any part of science junk for a suitable fee. And yes, I checked its the same Stephen Milloy. The attribution at the end of the article confirms it.

I could spend a lot of time going into Milloy's record as a producer of scientific articles ranging from dubious to outright false, but lets not get distracted into the ad-homs here. Instead, how about a look at the criticism of the CFL scare from denialism.com - as the site points out, the level of mercury in a CFL is tiny - 5mg. Not to mention that CFL is just a new packageing for an old technology - the older tube-lights run on exactly the same princible and have been in use for a long time now. Have there been any major safety concerns about those? They contain much more mercury than a CFL, due simply to their larger volume. Thermometers contain a whole lot more than either - and who finds that they need to call in the hazmat squad if they break a thermometer?

The $2000 cleanup incident seems to be just an overreaction - an extreme case of 'better safe than sorry.' Or, this being america, perhaps 'better safe than liable.'

Re:No, I buy nice ones.

[Secrity]

I found that the 'warm white' CFLs sold at Home Depot produce light that is pleasing to me. For grins I bought a CFL at a dollar store, that one makes a nasty color of light -- I put it in my utility room as it is seldom used. The interesting thing to me is that the warm white CFLs take a while to warm up, while the nasty white light seems to be at nearly full output when it is first turned on.

Info from EnergyStar.gov

[WallyHartshorn]

Here are a couple of relevant bits from EnergyStar.gov publication Information on Proper Disposal of Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs (PDF):

Is it true that CFLs contain mercury? Why and how much?

CFLs contain a very small amount of mercury sealed within the glass tubing - an average of 5 milligrams (roughly equivalent to the tip of a ball-point pen). Mercury is an essential, irreplaceable element in CFLs and is what allows the bulb to be an efficient light source. By comparison, older home thermometers contain 500 milligrams of mercury and many manual thermostats contain up to 3000 milligrams. It would take between 100 and 600 CFLs to equal those amounts.

[...]

What should I do if a CFL breaks?

Because there is such a small amount of mercury in CFLs, your greatest risk if a bulb breaks is getting cut from glass shards. Research indicates that there is no immediate health risk to you or your family should a bulb break and it's cleaned up properly. You can minimize any risks by following these proper clean-up and disposal guidelines:

• Sweep up--don't vacuum--all of the glass fragments and fine particles.
• Place broken pieces in a sealed plastic bag and wipe the area with a damp paper towel to pick up any stray shards of glass or fine particles. Put the used towel in the plastic bag as well.
• If weather permits, open windows to allow the room to ventilate.

Re:No, I buy nice ones.

[mrfunnypants]

You would think but you would be wrong.

You see a landfill gets many things dumped into them that should not be. The major problem with this is that many of these chemicals end up reacting with mercury which causes more problems then most people realize, please see some of the URL's below as to why you are mistaken in assuming that mercury is a noble gas. On top of this you also have the problem that it appears bacteria found in landfills are able to convert mercury into the much deadlier form of methylated mercury which is again bad.

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20010707/fob1. asp

http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/20 01/jul/science/kc_landfill.html

http://www.esd.ornl.gov/people/lindberg/lindberg3. html

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb4814/is_20 0507/ai_n17457809

Re:No, I buy nice ones.

[mrfunnypants]

organic mercury however is not:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v242/n5398/ab s/242452a0.html

As stated in my other post mercury can be converted into organic mercury in landfills.

Re:Disposal?

[mrfunnypants]

Mercury spills happen infrequently across the country in university chemistry labs. Typically zinc or sulfur powder is used which binds mercury followed by proper disposal by the university environment, health, and safety department. Many universities are switching to alcohol based thermometers to prevent this.

If you spill mercury I would recommend the following from the Ohio State website:

IMPORTANT NOTES !!! Pregnant women and children should be removed from a spill site and should never be
included in cleanup activities. If a resident has already vacuumed the mercury spill, walked through the spill, or
otherwise extended the spill beyond its initial spill location, disregard the small mercury spills fact sheet and
the mercury cleanup kit document and contact the Ohio EPA's spill hotline at 1-800-282-9378. If a resident have
properly contained the spill, complete the first five steps of the "Small Mercury Spills - What should you do?"
fact sheet. There are mercury spill kits commercially available and convenient. But these kits can be expensive
and are not absolutely necessary to clean up a small, contained mercury spill (such as a fever thermometer or
mercury switch break). The following are some common household items that could be used to construct an
in-home mercury cleanup kit for a small, contained spill:
Rubber gloves
Goggles
Flashlight
Rubber squeegee
Tape (use wide duct, or masking)
Stiff index card
Eye dropper
Syringe without needle
Plastic containers with lids
Wide mouth container
Plastic bags with zipper seal
Plastic sheeting
Trash bags
Tray or box
Powdered sulfur *1
Powdered zinc *2
Powdered sulfur and zinc can be found at garden supply stores or chemical supply houses.
These powders do not prevent mercury vapors, but bind the mercury to the powders for cleanup.
*1- Sulfur powder turns from yellow to brown when it comes in contact with mercury.
*2- Zinc powder amalgamates (bonds with) mercury.
Note: Any item used during a mercury spill cleanup should be double-bagged and disposed of safely. If the
spill was properly contained and cleaned, environmental air testing may not be necessary for spills as small as
a broken fever thermometer. However, a person may wish to have their residence tested to ensure safe levels
for re-occupancy.

National Post

[blackjackshellac]

This is a Canadian right wing newspaper put out by the neocons at CanWest Global. Don't believe the anti-hype, this is all a concerted disinformation campaign being put on by the conservatives.

Re:How about LEDs then

[iksbob]

I'm not sure where you got your numbers from, but LEDs have made some major leaps and bounds in the past few years. CREE claims 50-80 lumens/watt in their production power LEDs http://www.cree.com/products/xlamp.asp, and as high as 100 with experimental designs.
Osram recently announced a 1000 lumen LED (really 6 LED dies packed into one device) that will be sent to market this summer. http://www.physorg.com/news93198212.html

Re:No, I buy nice ones.

[The Great Pretender]

Takes about 2 ng/L Hg in the right environment (anaerobic, sulfur reducing/methylating bacteria - very common btw, especially in landfills) to create a methyl-Hg issue.

Re:Fifty-fifty.

[melandy]

I use the two bulb trick, but with two different brands of CFL, instead of a CFL + incandescent. One of them is instant-on (Sylvania), but has a slow warm-up time. The other (Philips) has about a 0.3 second delay when lighting up, but there is no perceptible warm-up time.

It actually works quite well in the morning when you're not fully awake yet. You flip on the switch, and you get some light right away from the Sylvania... plenty enough not to trip over anything. Then the Philips kicks in. Plenty of light to do whatever. Over the next 15-30 seconds or so, the Sylvania glows up to full brightness. Much easier on the eyes in the morning, and not too annoying the rest of the day. Good trade-off IMO.

Also, using different brands in the same fixture tends to mitigate the color temperature effects, since the bulbs have different light frequency characteristics.

I know there are probably better brands/types/whatever out there. These were the two kinds that were convenient geographically. I live down the street from Lowes... their CFL selection is not that great.

Re:Disposal?

[Skjellifetti]

Your local land fill agency doesn't have a web page like this?

Re:Does anyone else

[blzabub]

www.optiledtech.com

disclosure: my company built their website

OSHA Hg PEL

[tarkas]

More fodder:
http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/healthguidelines/mercuryv apor/recognition.html

Now, what sort of concentrations are generated from a spill of 5mg in an average sized bedroom?
FTFOA:

EXPOSURE LIMITS

* OSHA PEL The current Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) permissible exposure limit (PEL) for mercury vapor is 0.1 milligram per cubic meter (mg/m(3)) of air as a ceiling limit. A worker's exposure to mercury vapor shall at no time exceed this ceiling level.

* NIOSH REL

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has established a recommended exposure limit (REL) for mercury vapor of 0.05 mg/m(3) as a TWA for up to a 10-hour workday and a 40-hour workweek. NIOSH also assigns a "Skin" notation, which indicates that the cutaneous route of exposure, including mucous membranes and eyes, contributes to overall exposure [NIOSH 1992].

* ACGIH TLV

The American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) has assigned mercury vapor a threshold limit value (TLV) of 0.025 mg/m(3) as a TWA for a normal 8-hour workday and a 40-hour workweek and considers mercury vapor an A4 substance (not classifiable as a human carcinogen). The ACGIH also assigns a "Skin" notation to mercury vapor [ACGIH 1994, p. 25].

* Rationale for Limits

The NIOSH limit is based on the risk of central nervous system damage, eye, skin, and respiratory tract irritation [NIOSH 1992].

The ACGIH has not published documentation for the current TLV for mercury vapor. The 1991 Documentation of Threshold Limit Values (6th edition) discusses the basis for the prior TLV of 0.05 mg/m(3), but does not discuss the current TLV for mercury vapor [ACGIH 1991, p. 881].

HEALTH HAZARD INFORMATION

* Routes of Exposure

Exposure to mercury vapor can occur through inhalation, and eye or skin contact.

* Summary of toxicology

1. Effects on Animals: Mercury vapor can damage the kidneys, liver, brain, heart, lungs and colon in experimental animals. It is also mutagenic and can affect the immune system. Rabbits exposed for a single 4 hour period to mercury vapor at a concentration of 28.8 mg/m(3) developed severe damage to the kidneys, liver, brain, heart, lungs, and colon [Clayton and Clayton 1981]. Rabbits exposed to 0.86 mg/m(3) for 6 weeks had significant brain and kidney damage, which resolved on cessation of exposure. Exposure to 6 mg/m(3) mercury vapor caused severe damage to the kidney, heart, lung, and brain of rabbits; however, dogs exposed to 0.1 mg/m(3) for 83 weeks had no microscopic indication of tissue damage [Clayton and Clayton 1981]. Mercury may injure the kidneys through an autoimmune mechanism [ACGIH 1991]. Mercury was mutagenic in eukaryotic cells [ACGIH 1991].

2. Effects on Humans: Mercury vapor can cause effects in the central and peripheral nervous systems, lungs, kidneys, skin and eyes in humans. It is also mutagenic and affects the immune system [Hathaway et al. 1991; Clayton and Clayton 1981; Rom 1992]. Acute exposure to high concentrations of mercury vapor causes severe respiratory damage, while chronic exposure to lower levels is primarily associated with central nervous system damage [Hathaway et al. 1991]. Chronic exposure to mercury is also associated with behavioral changes and alterations in peripheral nervous system [ACGIH 1991]. Pulmonary effects of mercury vapor inhalation include diffuse interstitial pneumonitis with profuse fibrinous exudation [Gosselin 1984]. Glomerular dysfunction and proteinuria have been observed mercury exposed workers [ACGIH 1991]. Chronic mercury exposure can cause discoloration of the cornea and lens, eyelid tremor and, rarely, disturbances of vision and extraocular muscles [Grant 1986]. Delayed hypersensitivity reactions have been reported in individuals exposed to mercury vapor [Clayton and Clayton 1981]. Mercury vapor is reported to b

TVs and "instant on"

[Ellis D. Tripp]

The standby power consumption of a TV set is the power needed to keep the REMOTE CONTROL receiver and associated microcontroller running all the time. If this wasn't done, then your remote wouldn't be able to turn the set on, because the circuitry that receives the signals from it would be dead.

The "instant on" story goes back to when TVs contained vacuum tubes, and required a minute or more to produce a picture from a cold start. Manufacturers discovered that if you kept the tube filaments warm all the time, startup time was greatly reduced. The fact that such circuits wasted gobs of electricity and burned down more than a few homes didn't matter much....

Re:Disposal?

[Maitri]

You are supposed to recycle them! Look for a someone who does it in your area.

Here are some places to look for more information:
http://www.lightbulbrecycling.com/regulations.html
http://www.nema.org/lamprecycle/
http://www.scdhec.gov/brap/forms/flo_lamps.pdf

Also, for those of you guessing about how many bulbs there are in circulation:
"The Mercury from on fluorescent bulb can pollute 6000 gallons of water beyond safe levels for drinking"
and
"The Association of Lighting and Mercury Recyclers (ALMR) estimates that at least 400 million mercury lamps are being disposed of annually as part of the municipal solid waste stream and only 20 percent of all mercury lamps are being recycled."
and
"All fluorescent lamps contain mercury. In fact, the standard fluorescent bulb has about 20 milligrams of mercury."

So - that means that about 8,000,000,000 milligrams or 17,637 pounds of mercury is being put into our environment in the United States. Not a trivial matter.

Re:Disposal?

[drogers47]

Typically zinc or sulfur powder is used which binds mercury followed by proper disposal...

Yep, I've used sulphur powder twice for spills, once in a chem lab and once from a thermometer at home.

Sulphur powder is preferred over zinc for home use. Sulphur is readily purchased from a drugstore, is inexpensive, has no odor when used, is non-staining to clothing/rugs/pets/furniture, and is non-toxic as long as you don't take a match to it.

Whereas zinc powder is (surprise!) flammable.

Make sure you get *powdered* sulphur. It looks like yellow chalk dust. Coarse granules are much less effective for a couple of reasons.

Directions for use (assumes you're dealing with the 5 mg-10 mg mercury of a CFL):

1. Pick up glass first.

2. Sprinkle the dry sulphur powder wherever you think the mercury went. You can use lots, but piles of sulphur powder are overkill.

2. Work it into the area, say by spreading with a disposable cloth. (Careful of glass though!)

3. Wipe it up. Since it's bright yellow, it's easy to see where to clean. Use dry or wet cloth for this. Final clean with vacuum cleaner is optional.

4. Dispose in trash. Sulphur powder is stable and benign to the environment. As others have pointed out, 5 mg mercury in a sulphur amalgam is a low risk.

While mercury does turn dry sulphur a brown color, you don't get enough mercury from a CFL for the brown to be visible to you.

Re:Disposal?

[cduffy]

We're talking about CFLs, not standard fluorescents. CFLs typically have less than 9mg of mercury -- and given that I could consume that 9mg of mercury with no ill effects whatsoever, I find the "6000 gallons of drinking water" claim difficult to believe.

Re:Does anyone else

[omeomi]

There's these...but they are kind of pricey:

http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/lights/7aa8/

Re:Steven Milloy

[trb]

She could just vacuum the carpet up and wait for the gasses to dissipate.

Not quite. From: www.nema.org/lamprecycle/epafactsheet-cfl.pdf

Safe cleanup precautions: 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.

Using a vacuum cleaner will risk sucking the mercury off the floor and spewing it into the air as vapor, which is what you do not want. Be careful out there.

Misleading article

[Futurepower(R)]

FRAUD ALERT

The Financial Post article is typical scientific fraud, in my opinion. They apparently want you to read their publication so that you will see the ads, and they don't care how they get you to do it. They don't hire writers who understand the issues apparently, and they don't give their writers enough time to do research.

Look at these paragraphs from a June 20, 2006 article from the Oregonian newspaper, Mercury rules give kiln a pass, which is now available only to paid subscribers.

"As Oregon, with federal prodding, clamps down on mercury emitted by a Portland General Electric coal-fired power plant in Boardman, it leaves unregulated an Eastern Oregon factory that is a far larger source of the toxic compound.

"The state's biggest industrial source of airborne mercury is a cement kiln run by Kansas-based Ash Grove Cement Co. in the town of Durkee. Unaffected by federal laws aimed at coal-fired power plants, it released 632 pounds of mercury into the air in 2004, the last year when records are available, compared with 151 pounds emitted by PGE's facility."

Yes, compact fluorescent bulbs should be given to some agency to recycle them. But broken compact fluorescents are a small contribution to the total amount of mercury in the atmosphere, which is rapidly increasing by thousands of tons each year since China is increasing the number of coal-fired plants.

Re:Does anyone else

[Prune]

LEDs lighting also suffers from narrowband spikes in its spectrum, and thus cannot render colors as good as a properly filtered incandescent. Only a blackbody emitter can be made to match daylight. The problem is that when you have narrow spikes in the spectrum, as LEDs and fluorescents do, it's impossible to filter them effectively as there are no practical filters that are sufficiently wavelength-specific. Compare the spectral measurement of any fluorescent or LED with that of a good daylight bulb like a solux etc., which match the solar spectrum almost exactly.