Toxicity of Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs
drt on Jun 01 2008 at 9:33 pm | Filed under: Health, Human Interest, video
Recently, there was a discussion in the mailing list of a wellness group I belong to concerning the toxicity of low energy light bulbs.
A quick search on the Internet brought me to different views on this topic. For example, back in April, in an article, Political Crusaders, Dr. Thomas Sowell’s described the campaign to replace ordinary light bulbs with the new compact flourecent (CFL) light bulbs as the latest political crusades.
Down through the list of my search results I also found that back in 2007, NPR provided some info on the CFL, and reminding people the problems with the bulbs, including the fact that :
the bulbs contain small amounts of mercury, a neurotoxin, and the companies and federal government haven’t come up with effective ways to get Americans to recycle them.
The NPR site also discussed the trouble in recycling the light bulbs in various parts of the country, and provided some other additional info on the same page including the reasons and supporting figures on why we had to use the CFL. However, the link to NEMA site is broken, but the Fact sheet on Mercury in the CFL bulbs is still there.
From the search results, I also found a video from the Common Craft site, which provides the reasons to use CFL in plain English.
I also found the following Foxnews video, where Jamie Colby asked Dr. Rosenfeld to explain the danger of these low energy light bulbs.
I think this is a good video and as always, I’m happy to share with you all here. 
In this video, Dr. Rosenfeld also pointed out that although these light bulbs are good for most of the people, it may affect a small number of the people due to the fluorescent nature of the light bulbs. Hm, I just wonder, what would happen to these people after 2014 where all the light bulbs have to be replaced by the CFLs?
My search also took me to the Wikipedia site which offered the following advices for the disposal of CFL as has also been briefly mentioned by Dr. Rosenfeld in the video:
Safe disposal requires storing the bulbs unbroken until they can be processed. Consumers should seek advice from local authorities. Usually, one can either:
- Return used CFLs to where they were purchased, so the store can recycle them correctly; or
- Take used CFLs to a local recycling facility.
Broken CFLs are an immediate health hazard due to the evaporation of mercury into the atmosphere. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommends that, in the absence of local guideline, fluorescent bulbs be double-bagged in plastic bags before disposal.[24]
The first step of processing CFLs involves crushing the bulbs in a machine that uses negative pressure ventilation and a mercury-absorbing filter or cold trap to contain mercury vapor. Many municipalities are purchasing such machines. The crushed glass and metal is stored in drums, ready for shipping to recycling factories.
I’m not an Economist and I don’t know the cost benefit on setting up all these recycling centers around the country versus the gain from safing the energy and the overall effects. However, arming with all these information, personally, I would not hesitate to keep using the CFLs that I have used so far. What about you?
Popularity: 47% [?]
Wow, shouldn’t the EPA be telling people this? I had no idea. And so much for being green.