Break a Mirror... 7 YearsBreak or Toss Out a CFL... Mercury Poisoning?

I’ve always hated fluorescent lights...

... And, apparently, the feeling is mutual...

The evil, blinking buggers give me wicked migraines.

The widespread push over the last few years for EVERYONE to stop using incandescent (non-migraine inducing) bulbs... and switch to the New, Spiffy and Swirly Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFLs) has been an ordeal.

I Don’t Care that they’re "...Longer Lasting!"... and, for me at least, They Don’t "...Use Less Energy!"... (It takes A Lot of Energy out of a person to dry heave for several hours.)

Now... I stumble upon this little item... Well, it isn’t so "little."

You likely were as unaware as I was that the Squiggly Darling of the (apparently uninformed) chorus that’s been touting this Poster Bulb in their "Go Greener!" advertising contains a highly toxic substance that can cause kidney and brain damage.

The Creepy, Little Coils that will often keep me from ever setting foot in those businesses that bought into the alternate-light hype and that glow with their unnatural and painful pulse contain MERCURY, a NEUROTOXIN.

Remember good ol’ incandescents?...

If you broke one of those... the worst thing that could happen is you might cut yourself picking up the shards... No Big Deal.

And Disposal of Incandescents? Easy... they went in the regular trash.

But those snake-like CFLs?...

Please Take Note of This:

There are Actually a Set of Safety Guidelines for Cleaning Up A Broken CFL (Compact Fluorescent.).

No, I’m not kidding, I’ve included them at the end of the article below.

Not only that...

You should NEVER THROW COMPACT FLUORESCENT LIGHT BULBS IN THE TRASH.

Like I said... They Contain MERCURY... Just a little in each one...

But, it’s enough to thoroughly contaminate our groundwater if you consider the number of CFLs sold in America (9 MILLION in California alone in 2007!)... and the fact that there’s been no PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT to let the Public Know that they shouldn’t throw them out with the trash.

I don’t know if the package even tells you about the Mercury or Safe Clean-Up or Safe Disposal...

Like I said... I hate the little, terrible twists... I’ve never even picked one up...

Which is a good thing considering... If I’d have dropped and broken one... i probably would’ve just picked up the pieces like we all used to do with incandescents...

And that, my friends, is a Big "No. No."

Brought to You By: "G.E.... We bring Good Things To Life!"...

Gee... Migraines AND Mercury Poisoning?... Thanks!

I’ll just stick with the Mercury Neurotoxin-Free Incandescents.

Peace.
L.

Shining a Light on Hazards of Fluorescent Bulbs
Energy-efficient coils booming, but disposal of Mercury poses problems

By Alex Johnson
Reporter
MSNBC
updated 4:10 p.m. PT, Wed., March. 19, 2008

Compact fluorescent light bulbs, long touted by environmentalists as a more efficient and longer-lasting alternative to the incandescent bulbs that have lighted homes for more than a century, are running into resistance from waste industry officials and some environmental scientists, who warn that the bulbs’ poisonous innards pose a bigger threat to health and the environment than previously thought.

Fluorescents — the squiggly, coiled bulbs that generate light by heating gases in a glass tube — are generally considered to use more than 50 percent less energy and to last several times longer than incandescent bulbs.

When fluorescent bulbs first hit store shelves several years ago, consumers complained about the loud noise they made, their harsh light, their bluish color, their clunky shape and the long time it took for them to warm up.

Since then, the bulbs — known as CFLs — have been revamped, and strict government guidelines have alleviated most of those problems. But while the bulbs are extremely energy-efficient, one problem hasn’t gone away: All CFLs contain mercury, a neurotoxin that can cause kidney and brain damage.

The amount is tiny — about 5 milligrams, or barely enough to cover the tip of a pen — but that is enough to contaminate 6,000 gallons of water beyond safe drinking levels, Stanford University environmental safety researchers found. Even the latest lamps promoted as "low-mercury" can contaminate more than 1,000 gallons of water beyond safe levels.

There is no disputing that overall, fluorescent bulbs save energy and reduce pollution in general. An average incandescent bulb lasts about 800 to 1,500 hours; a spiral fluorescent bulb can last as long as 10,000 hours. In just more than a year — since the beginning of 2007 — 9 million fluorescent bulbs have been purchased in California, preventing the release of 1.5 billion pounds of carbon dioxide compared with traditional bulbs, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

"Using them actually reduces overall emissions to the environment, even though they contain minuscule amounts of mercury in themselves," said Mark Kohorst, senior manager for environment, health and safety for the National Electrical Manufacturers Association.

Public, agencies ill-informed of risks
As long as the mercury is contained in the bulb, CFLs are perfectly safe. But eventually, any bulbs — even CFLs — break or burn out, and most consumers simply throw them out in the trash, said Ellen Silbergeld, a professor of environmental health sciences at Johns Hopkins University and editor of the journal Environmental Research.

"This is an enormous amount of mercury that’s going to enter the waste stream at present with no preparation for it," she said.

Manufacturers and the EPA say broken CFLs should be handled carefully and recycled to limit dangerous vapors and the spread of mercury dust. But guidelines for how to do that can be difficult to find, as Brandy Bridges of Ellsworth, Maine, discovered.

"It was just a wiggly bulb that I reached up to change," Bridges said. "When the bulb hit the floor, it shattered."

When Bridges began calling around to local government agencies to find out what to do, "I was shocked to see how uninformed literally everyone I spoke to was," she said. "Even our own poison control operator didn’t know what to tell me."

The state eventually referred her to a private cleanup firm, which quoted a $2,000 estimate to contain the mercury. After Bridges complained publicly about her predicament, state officials changed their recommendation: Simply throw it in the trash, they said.

Limited options for safe recycling
The disposal problem doesn’t end there. Ideally, broken bulbs and their remains should be recycled at a facility approved to handle fluorescent lamps, but such facilities are not common.

California is one of only seven states — Minnesota, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin are the others — that ban disposing of fluorescent bulbs as general waste. And yet, qualified recycling facilities are limited to about one per county. In other states, collection of CFLs is conducted only at certain times of the year — twice annually in the District of Columbia, for example, and only once a year in most of Georgia.

In fact, qualified places to recycle CFLs are so few that the largest recycler of of fluorescent bulbs in America is Ikea, the furniture chain.

"I think there’s going to be hundreds of millions of [CFLs] in landfills all over the country," said Leonard Worth, head of Fluorecycle Inc. of Ingleside, Ill., a certified facility.

Once in a landfill, bulbs are likely to shatter even if they’re packaged properly, said the Solid Waste Association of North America. From there, mercury can leach into soil and groundwater and its vapors can spread through the air, potentially exposing workers to toxic levels of the poison.

Industry working on safer bulbs
Kohorst, of the electrical manufacturers group, acknowledged that disposal was a complex problem. But he said fluorescent bulbs were so energy-efficient that it was worth the time and money needed to make them completely safe.

"These are a great product, and they’re going to continue solving our energy problems, and gradually we’re going to find a solution to their disposal, as well," Kohorst said.

In the meantime, manufacturers of incandescent bulbs are not going down without a fight.

General Electric Corp., the world’s largest maker of traditional bulbs, said that by 2010, it hoped to have on the market a new high-efficiency incandescent bulb that will be four times as efficient as today’s 125-year-old technology. It said that such bulbs would closely rival fluorescent bulbs for efficiency, with no mercury.

(Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft Corp. and NBC Universal, which is a division of General Electric.)

However, if the disposal problem is to be solved, speed would appear to be called for. Consumers bought more than 300 million CFLs last year, according to industry figures, but they may be simply trading one problem (low energy-efficiency) for another (hazardous materials by the millions of pounds going right into the earth).

"One lamp, so what? Ten lamps, so what? A million lamps, well that’s something," said Worth of Fluorecycle.

"A hundred million lamps? Now, that’s a whole different ballgame."

NBC affiliates KNTV of San Francisco; KPVI of Pocatello, Idaho; WBAL of Baltimore; WLBZ of Bangor, Maine; WMAQ of Chicago; WRC of Washington; and WTLV of Jacksonville, Fla., contributed to this report.

HOW TO (SAFELY) CLEAN UP A BROKEN FLUORESCENT LIGHT BULB:

*Before cleanup: Vent the room*

1. Open a window and leave the room for 15 minutes or more.
2. Shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning system, if you have one.

*Cleanup steps for hard surfaces*

3. Carefully scoop up glass fragments and powder using stiff paper or cardboard and place them in a glass jar with metal lid (such as a canning jar) or in a sealed plastic bag.
4. Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass fragments and powder.
5. Wipe the area clean with damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes and place them in the glass jar or plastic bag.
6. Do not use a vacuum or broom to clean up the broken bulb on hard surfaces.

*Cleanup steps for carpeting or rug*

3. Carefully pick up glass fragments and place them in a glass jar with metal lid (such as a canning jar) or in a sealed plastic bag.
4. Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass fragments and powder.
5. If vacuuming is needed after all visible materials are removed, vacuum the area where the bulb was broken.
6. Remove the vacuum bag (or empty and wipe the canister), and put the bag or vacuum debris in a sealed plastic bag.

*Disposal of cleanup materials*

7. Immediately place all cleanup materials outside the building in a trash container or outdoor protected area for the next normal trash.
8. Wash your hands after disposing of the jars or plastic bags containing cleanup materials.
9. Check with your local or state government about disposal requirements in your specific area. Some states prohibit such trash disposal and require that broken and unbroken lamps be taken to a recycling center.

*Future cleaning of carpeting or rug*

10. For at least the next few times you vacuum, shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning system and open a window prior to vacuuming.
11. Keep the central heating/air conditioning system shut off and the window open for at least 15 minutes after vacuuming is completed.