April 25th, 2007
Canada to Ban Incandescent Bulbs by 2012
By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews
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
We Say: As I said during my earlier story about the E.U., you can’t just toss these. Especially in California, where the Electronic Waste Recycling Act makes it unlawful. These bulbs have trace amounts of mercury, and can’t just be thrown into the trash. As I also said then, these countries enforcing these bans need to come up with effective collection and / or recycling campaigns (California actually does not!) in order to make sure these don’t just end up in landfills.
Pyrial says:
These have less mercury (counting the amount released during power generation) than an incandescent creates during power generation…
April 26th, 2007 at 4:57 am
Lewie says:
The mercury in these bulbs has been continually decreasing over the past decade or so and a typical bulb now contains less than 5 mg of mercury. Pyrial is also correct; the amount of mercury is negligible compared to the amount produced by fossil fuel burning. Still, fluorescents (and incandescents) are probably doomed by LED technology anyway.
April 26th, 2007 at 5:45 am
Richard says:
Pyrial’s position on this subject is ridiculous. Take 50 of these waste fluorescent bulbs, smash them, and you get a significant quantity of Mercury. There is no significant Mercury pollution coming from coal plants and certainly none from nuke plants. So the wacky environmental lobby is going to cause a huge disaster forcing countries to convert to these bulbs. This is just another example of an idiotic policy being forced upon an unsuspecting public by charlatans.
April 26th, 2007 at 7:14 am
allen says:
Not to mention the fact that it’s just a matter of time, and not all that much time, before LEDs start to displace incandescents and fluorescents. As prices drop the market will burgeon the case for more investment in manufacturing and research a sound business decision.
And look, it doesn’t require any governmental arm-twisting. Of course, I see governmental arm-twisting as a *bad* thing.
April 26th, 2007 at 7:37 am
ed3 says:
Mercury aside, what about the electronics and plastics in the base?
April 26th, 2007 at 7:41 am
Joe Merchant says:
5mg of mercury per bulb * 20 bulbs per household = 100mg/household
Now 1000 houses in the neighborhood all forced to buy these bulbs (or LEDs that cost 10x as much right now), will contain 100 grams of mercury - in vapor form every few years, and I’d be willing to bet that 90+% of that gets discharged to the atmosphere in the real world of electronics recycling programs.
The woman in front of me at Home Depot discharged (shattered) 2 of those bulbs by putting a can of paint down on the blister pack. All the recycling programs in the world won’t stop these things from being broken.
I did take note that an environmentally concerned customer with a cart full of the bulbs - A) had no idea they contained mercury, B) shelled out over $100 at one throw to buy what would have been maybe $10 worth of el-cheapo incandescant bulbs.
April 26th, 2007 at 8:21 am
Busto963 says:
I have no issue with lower the bar on mercury (or other) highly toxic chemicals, but the real target of this ban is energy efficiency a topic that socialist governments like California, the EU, and to a lessor extent Canada have no business trying to regulate.
The simple fact is that the ordinary citzen should be free to choose products based on need, personal choice, and budget. I use LEDs, fluorescent, low voltage, incandescent and halogen bulbs as appropriate.
I live in the Midwest. Flourescent bulbs are energy efficient, but are slow to start up in very cold weather (no good for an “instant on” exterior light) and have serious color rendering problems (even expensive “natural light bulbs” are around ~3-3500 kelvins), and mood effects that make them totally inappropriate for livng rooms, kitchens and bedrooms. They are great for basements, garages, exterior lights that remain on all night, and other areas. LEDs are the future, but are expensive and simply do not put out an appropriate quantity light. You also have to pay through the nose for good color balanced LEDs. Halogens are about perfect for for livng rooms, kitchens and bedrooms, as well as task lights, being bright, adjustable, and having warm color (~2500 kelvins). Three quarters of the year, the (in)efficiency of halogen and incandescent bulbs is a non issue as the “waste heat” goes right into heating my home.
April 26th, 2007 at 9:43 am
Kunoichi says:
Just because a Yahoo! article doesn’t mention a disposal plan or well, really much of anything, doesn’t mean these countries haven’t thought about it thoroughly. Notably, Canada’s ban would ban the sale, not the usage. Additionally, what do people do with the burned out and bad bulbs now?
April 26th, 2007 at 10:33 am
MissingFrame says:
Mercury aside, in Canada, 9 months out of the year the “wasted heat” from incandescents is beneficial in that it helps heat your house.
Then there’s the dimming problem, which I’ve yet to find a fluorescent capable of dimming to 5% of it’s full capacity.
April 26th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
Angel Elf says:
There is also the problem of getting small fluorescent bulbs that will replace those incandescents found in the inside of refrigerators, ovens, and stove hoods.
April 27th, 2007 at 9:16 am
marf says:
Encase (coat) the compact bulbs glass tube in a flexible plastic coating the same coating that is availible in commercial 4 foot and 8 foot flourescent tubes (stops the mercury breakage/leakage problem) and make it manditory that all flourescent tubes have this coating and that all tubes be recycled so that we don’t end up like the romans who were poisoned by lead, remember, you do not want to get brain damaged by mercury vapour exposure…it’s rather unpleasant and gross.
April 30th, 2007 at 12:00 am
TK says:
I wounder what GE and Phillips and Sylvania are thinking right now. CFLs are only 5-10% of their lamp sales. The majority of lamps sold are incandescent. It seems their huge push for these is starting to back fire a bit. I do think CFLs are great for table lamps and closets, but who wants to feel like their in an office building when they get home? Dimmers are a great way of saving energy! There is alot of dimming info on the web (check lutron.com/energy) and not only do you get engery and CO2 savings, but you get the option of setting the light level as you desire. CFLs can not be dimmed, even though some claim they can. The problem is the way dimmers work. In simple terms, dimmers shut your lights on and off around 120 times a second. What we preceive as dimming is actually the dimmer keeping your lights off longer in that on-off cycle. The dimmer the lights, the longer your lights are off, the more electricity you save, and the longer your bulb lasts ( potentially greater than 20x its normal switched life) The problem with CFLs is that the balast inside the bulb is also controling when the lamp is fired (using electricity) and that will always conflict with dimmers. One CFL manufacturer actually said they can be dimmed using a reastat dimmer. These things have been unavailable since the 70s when solid state dimming was coming of age (again check lutron who invented solid state dimming). Ok, so no dimming them. Another problem is installing these bulbs in down fixtures. The heat generated by the bulb with rise through the base where the ballast is located and shorten the life of that bulb significantly. Having to replace a CFL every 6 months is not a great way to cut your lighting costs. So now we have to replace all our downward facing fixture with flourescent fixtures with externaly mounted balasts. Should i keep going? Ok so you know that painting or picture we have lit with the sweet looking track fixture? well now we have use flourescent lamps… how do we aim the beam of light on the picture? You can’t (yet)! flourescent lights distribute light throughout the whole survace of the lamp. They can’t focus light like incandescent lamps can. I could go on and on but i will stop it here. There simply is not enough research being done by these law-makers to justify the termination of incandescent lamps. I am 100% for cutting green house gases and lighting is a huge component of that, but i am also expecting these law-makers to do their homework before jumping to a quick solution!
January 3rd, 2008 at 8:45 am