The Truth about CFL's

My wife and I got our Hydro bill and had to force to switch some of our light bulbs to those CFL's ...

Then she came back with me on this article
The CFL mercury nightmare
by Steven Milloy, Financial Post
Published: Saturday, April 28, 2007

Then she gave me a better website to choose where we should buy our Bulbs.
I've always been a fan of LED's and seems that it would be a matter of time before all of these light's price would go down.

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/about_us/...ly06220701.asp

....But we have to keep things in perspective. The amount of mercury in a CFL is tiny - many times less than is found in a watch battery or dental filling. Coal-fired power plants are the single largest sources of mercury in our environment today, because coal contains mercury. By reducing our electricity consumption through measures like switching to CFLs, we reduce the demand for power, thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions, along with mercury and other pollutants.....

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


And of course the Post left out half the story that originally appeared in the Ellsworth American http://ellsworthmaine.com/site/index...7446&Itemid=31

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.

“In this situation, my understanding, was this 1,900 was the sign reading right at the spot of the floor where the bulb broke,” said Smith. “While 1,900 was certainly considered an elevated reading of mercury vapor, it was a very localized level that I would not expect to result in any sign of mercury exposure.”

Smith said mercury is only dangerous with long-term exposure and in this case the person would have to stay right at the spot of the 1,900 reading or there would have to be elevated levels of mercury vapor in the breathing zone — about 3 feet — above the spill. Mercury also dissipates over time.

Originally Posted by gerbil

My wife and I got our Hydro bill and had to force to switch some of our light bulbs to those CFL's ...

Then she came back with me on this article
The CFL mercury nightmare
by Steven Milloy, Financial Post
Published: Saturday, April 28, 2007

Then she gave me a better website to choose where we should buy our Bulbs.
I've always been a fan of LED's and seems that it would be a matter of time before all of these light's price would go down.

How many times do I have to post these links

http://www.oee.nrcan.gc.ca/energysta...er-environment

http://www.oee.nrcan.gc.ca/energysta...attr=4#mercury

The average mercury content in a CFL is about 3 milligrams – roughly the amount it would take to cover the tip of a ball-point pen. By comparison, older thermometers contain 500 milligrams of mercury – the equivalent of more than 100 CFLs. A common wristwatch battery contains five times more mercury than a CFL.

So are you going to ban all watches?

Anyone watch Marketplace last night on CBC. Don't know if its new or old.
They covered the national rechargeable battery recycling program and the lack of a non-rechargeable battery recycling/disposal program.
They showed Port Credit's public schools doing a battery drive. It looked like a majority of the batteries were the flat watch-type batteries.
Why don't we have more battery disposal/recycling programs? Or am I just uninformed?

I have been collecting old batteries waiting for a proper way to dispose of them. Many collection stations only accept 'rechargeables'.

Similarly, one is not supposed to throw away a CFL bulb and they can't be recycled. So what are we supposed to do with them when they're burnt out?

Originally Posted by gmark2000

Similarly, one is not supposed to throw away a CFL bulb and they can't be recycled. So what are we supposed to do with them when they're burnt out?

Depending on where you live, there's a place where you can drop them off.
Here in Vaughan, in Major Mackinzie & Jane - near Vaughan Mills Mall .. you can drop off items like batteries, CFL bulbs, empty paint cans, hazardous containers that "Sanitary Engineers" normally won't pick up.

Originally Posted by gmark2000

I have been collecting old batteries waiting for a proper way to dispose of them. Many collection stations only accept 'rechargeables'.

Similarly, one is not supposed to throw away a CFL bulb and they can't be recycled. So what are we supposed to do with them when they're burnt out?

Some communities are better than others:


Batteries - automotive, cellphone, dry-cell, NiCad, lithium, alkali, lead-acid

Mercury - mercury, thermometers, thermostats, fluorescent tubes, compact fluorescent lights (CFLs)


http://www.saskatoon.ca/org/environm...ction/hhwd.asp

People are getting way too worked up over CFLs. They contain a minute amount of mercury, which is not some crazy dangerous man-made substance, it is an ELEMENT found in NATURE. Chances are there is just as much mercury in the dirt in your front lawn as there is in a CFL. Everyone has mercury in their body naturally. It is like every other substance that exists (including water) - it gets toxic when you have overexposure only.

Even if every person just tossed their CFLs ina landfill it would not matter one lick for several reasons. First of all, the mercury content is absolutely tiny in comparison to the content that is ALREADY in the landfill (all kinds of stuff contains mercury). Secondly, CFL bulbs last for years and years, so much les sof them end up in the landfil than normal light bulbs.

What is better, 100 CFLs in the landfil with their amount of mercury the same as one of the 10,000 thermometers likely already in there? Or the equivalent 5,000 incandescent bulbs?