March 9th, 2007
How many EU leaders does it take to change a lightbulb?
By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews
The answer is 27. European Union leaders, at a summit of the 27-nation bloc, have proposed to ban incandescent bulbs by the end of this decade. They are not the first to discuss these types of measures, aimed at combatting global warming and reducing energy use. Australia has already announced such a plan, and California is considering it as well.
The decision to order a massive switchover that will affect the lives of all the European Union’s 490 million citizens came at a summit of the 27-nation bloc as part of an ambitious green energy policy to fight climate change. The leaders asked the executive European Commission to come up with proposals for saving power in office and street lighting by 2008 and in homes by 2009. Source: Reuters
We Say: All well and good, but what I rarely hear mentioned is that flourescent bulbs contain mercury. They can’t just be thrown into the trash. Even the NPR Science reporter didn’t know this, and only ran a follow-up story on it once a listener wrote in. If nations are going to do this, they also need to come up with a plan to make sure disposal is both easy and efficient.
SomeDumbGuy says:
Yes, CFLs contain mercury. A drop of mercury. Just how does this make the product hazardous? Mercury is a naturally occurring mineral after all. I’m all for keeping the environment clean, but let’s not go overboard, gang!
March 9th, 2007 at 9:21 am
Michael Santo says:
CA already has a law which requires disposal of CFLs OUTSIDE of regular trash … however they don’t have a way of enforcing it. And most people don’t even know it.
http://www.sdge.com/residential/CFL_disposal.pdf
Additionally:
“The problem with the bulbs is that they’ll break before they get to the landfill. They’ll break in containers, or they’ll break in a dumpster or they’ll break in the trucks. Workers may be exposed to very high levels of mercury when that happens,” says John Skinner, executive director of the Solid Waste Association of North America, the trade group for the people who handle trash and recycling.
And when you add up all the drops, you could come up with plenty that will pollute ground water.
I’m not saying don’t do it, just come up with safe disposal methods.
Things like this that are ignored or forgotten end up biting us in the future.
March 9th, 2007 at 9:27 am
chantastic says:
SomeDumbGuy wrote:
“Mercury is a naturally occurring mineral after all.”
Right, and C02 is a naturally occurring gas. So why are we so worried about that?
This just reminds me of the MTBE debacle here in California. The cure ended up being worse than the disease.
March 9th, 2007 at 10:24 am
Lazlo says:
Of course L.E.D.s use even less power and last even longer. I’m sure if production were ramped up the price would come down. I think compact flourescents will mainly get bypassed if there’s a decent push behind the L.E.D.s. There already widely used in traffic signals.
March 9th, 2007 at 11:57 am
Mantawolf says:
Ok, have to speak up with some actual facts about the mercury content in a CFL.
Per the EPA, ‘the mercury released from powering an incandescent bulb for five years exceeds the sum of the mercury released by powering a comparably luminous CFL for the same period and the mercury contained in the lamp.’
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/ab/CFL_bulb_mercury_use_environment.svg/578px-CFL_bulb_mercury_use_environment.svg.png
The mercury content in a CFL plus the mercury released to power the bulb for 5 years is a little over 6mg. The mercury released just to power the incandescent for 5 years is 10mg.
March 9th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Ed Kirshner says:
The EPA assumes all the power comes from a coal plant. However, since about 50% of the power in the US does not come from coal and this half produces almost no mercury, the numbers switch. The mercury balance is better by a little for the incandescent.
But what about a state like California where only about 10 pounds of mercury are produced from power generation in the State? If all the incandescents were replaced by CFLs there, it would cut mercury by a few ounces a year from power generation but add over a ton of the toxic stuff in the CFLs. Maybe CFLs should be outlawed in places like California where the mercury balance is significantly negitive.
March 19th, 2007 at 5:47 am
» Canada to Ban Incandescent Bulbs by 2012 » Blog Archive Alice Hill’s Real Tech News - Independent Tech says:
[…] Joining Australia and the European Union, today Canada decreed they would ban incandescent bulbs by the year 2012, in an attempt to reduce the release of greenhouse gases. Canada will ban the sale of inefficient incandescent light bulbs by 2012 as part of a plan to cut down on emissions of greenhouse gases, Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn said on Wednesday. Source: Yahoo! News […]
April 25th, 2007 at 6:46 pm
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