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Discussion Forum

How green it is…….

joeh | Posted in General Discussion on May 1, 2007 05:31am

View ImageView Image
Monday Ã‚» April 30 Ã‚» 2007
 
The CFL mercury nightmare
 
Steven Milloy
Financial Post
Saturday, April 28, 2007

How much money does it take to screw in a compact fluorescent light bulb? About US$4.28 for the bulb and labour — unless you break the bulb. Then you, like Brandy Bridges of Ellsworth, Maine, could be looking at a cost of about US$2,004.28, which doesn’t include the costs of frayed nerves and risks to health.

Sound crazy? Perhaps no more than the stampede to ban the incandescent light bulb in favour of compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs).

According to an April 12 article in The Ellsworth American, Bridges had the misfortune of breaking a CFL during installation in her daughter’s bedroom: It dropped and shattered on the carpeted floor.

Aware that CFLs contain potentially hazardous substances, Bridges called her local Home Depot for advice. The store told her that the CFL contained mercury and that she should call the Poison Control hotline, which in turn directed her to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.

The DEP sent a specialist to Bridges’ house to test for mercury contamination. The specialist found mercury levels in the bedroom in excess of six times the state’s “safe” level for mercury contamination of 300 billionths of a gram per cubic meter. The DEP specialist recommended that Bridges call an environmental cleanup firm, which reportedly gave her a “low-ball” estimate of US$2,000 to clean up the room. The room then was sealed off with plastic and Bridges began “gathering finances” to pay for the US$2,000 cleaning. Reportedly, her insurance company wouldn’t cover the cleanup costs because mercury is a pollutant.

Given that the replacement of incandescent bulbs with CFLs in the average U.S. household is touted as saving as much as US$180 annually in energy costs — and assuming that Bridges doesn’t break any more CFLs — it will take her more than 11 years to recoup the cleanup costs in the form of energy savings.

The potentially hazardous CFL is being pushed by companies such as Wal-Mart, which wants to sell 100 million CFLs at five times the cost of incandescent bulbs during 2007, and, surprisingly, environmentalists.

It’s quite odd that environmentalists have embraced the CFL, which cannot now and will not in the foreseeable future be made without mercury. Given that there are about five billion light bulb sockets in North American households, we’re looking at the possibility of creating billions of hazardous waste sites such as the Bridges’ bedroom.

Usually, environmentalists want hazardous materials out of, not in, our homes. These are the same people who go berserk at the thought of mercury being emitted from power plants and the presence of mercury in seafood. Environmentalists have whipped up so much fear of mercury among the public that many local governments have even launched mercury thermometer exchange programs.

As the activist group Environmental Defense urges us to buy CFLs, it defines mercury on a separate part of its Web site as a “highly toxic heavy metal that can cause brain damage and learning disabilities in fetuses and children” and as “one of the most poisonous forms of pollution.”

Greenpeace also recommends CFLs while simultaneously bemoaning contamination caused by a mercury-thermometer factory in India. But where are mercury-containing CFLs made? Not in the United States, under strict environmental regulation. CFLs are made in India and China, where environmental standards are virtually non-existent.

And let’s not forget about the regulatory nightmare in the U.S. known as the Superfund law, the EPA regulatory program best known for requiring expensive but often needless cleanup of toxic waste sites, along with endless litigation over such cleanups.

We’ll eventually be disposing billions and billions of CFL mercury bombs. Much of the mercury from discarded and/or broken CFLs is bound to make its way into the environment and give rise to Superfund liability, which in the past has needlessly disrupted many lives, cost tens of billions of dollars and sent many businesses into bankruptcy.

As each CFL contains five milligrams of mercury, at the Maine “safety” standard of 300 nanograms per cubic meter, it would take 16,667 cubic meters of soil to “safely” contain all the mercury in a single CFL. While CFL vendors and environmentalists tout the energy cost savings of CFLs, they conveniently omit the personal and societal costs of CFL disposal.

Not only are CFLs much more expensive than incandescent bulbs and emit light that many regard as inferior to incandescent bulbs, they pose a nightmare if they break and require special disposal procedures. Yet governments (egged on by environmentalists and the Wal-Marts of the world) are imposing on us such higher costs, denial of lighting choice, disposal hassles and breakage risks in the name of saving a few dollars every year on the electric bill? – Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and CSRWatch.com. He is a junk-science expert and advocate of free enterprise, and an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

© National Post 2007
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Replies

  1. User avater
    CapnMac | May 01, 2007 06:39am | #1

    Yep, nothing for it but to mandate the $30-40 per lamp LED "bulbs"--after all, it's not the legislators who have to pay . . .

    You're likely to get abuse for repeating this news item, it's been in a couple thrasd here. 

    Me, I don't know if I know anymore.  To hear some talk, we'll all be carrying our hand-tied burlap string bag to the store to get our issued lamp.  Me, I've reading up on farm home companion books for things like making tapers (paraffin wax not so good--but processed beeswax is surpisingly clean to burn).

    Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
    1. VaTom | May 01, 2007 06:56am | #2

      I subscribe to what was originally a soil-making list.  If you really want a fright, tune into the moderator's POV about the collapse of "agriculture".  Monoculture, that is.  Has to do with "peak oil" and a lot of assumptions.  Lighting's gonna be the least of your problems.

      Also of interest to me is electric generation, so I read some of those folks.  Actually got an interesting plan (hydro) for our place.  Elaborate (= expensive) but I'm still looking.  If you wanna cool your house by burning waste oil, it works.

      BTW, where in Texas is "gumbo" soil common?  I gather it's bentonite?  Or at least is very unstable for some reason.  Received some questions about underground stuff.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!

      1. User avater
        CapnMac | May 01, 2007 07:36am | #4

        BTW, where in Texas is "gumbo" soil common?  I gather it's bentonite?  Or at least is very unstable for some reason.  Received some questions about underground stuff.

        Well, in common parlance, "gumbo" is any difficult-to-work soil, so it's found everywhere it's not rock nor bayou <g>

        Now, if you get a soils map out, and trace the outlines of the "blackland prairie," that's some awful stuff.  The black in it is from montromorillite, the worst of the expansive minerals.  That black stuff (which is very common around the DFW area and west of there over to the Brazos watershed) is flat out nasty.  It has no ideal water content; it's hard when dry, and sticky when wet.  It retains moisture, too, so if you crack open a dry lump, that lump then sticks to what it hits next.

        Next worst after the DFW area is the estuarial plains around the northern arc of Houston.  It's compacted loamy stuff with a high clay and silt content.  It's not at all nice to get on one's backhoe at all--but unlike the DFW gumbo, I've never seen it grap and flip a backhoe, either.

        The various flatter bits have deferring mixes of sub-ideal chemistry in them, legacy of the inland sea that covered 80% of the state back in the Creteaceous. 

        My local soil is not much fun at times, depending on where ins the ancient river bed you poke your shovel.  But, here, it's a mis of strata of sand, silt, and clay; in no particular order--"bearing strata" ar typically 300' down.  Which does not mean that a body won't find a layer of compacted damp clay only 12" under the sandy stuff naturally occuring as topsoil.

        Now, I have got to go find that knotting pattern fer my stringbag <g> . . . Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)

        1. VaTom | May 01, 2007 04:09pm | #6

          Yeow!  I had no idea my excavation life was so easy.  All I fight are large rocks and large trees.

          DFW gumbo I believe is what the lady was talking about.  Are soil engineers a commonplace requisite?PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!

          1. User avater
            CapnMac | May 01, 2007 07:24pm | #21

            Yeow!  I had no idea my excavation life was so easy.  All I fight are large rocks and large trees.

            Yeah, nothing like getting a little water into a slab-edge turn-down, and the inexperienced hand on the backhoe has too much "bucket" in when the water glues everything together with little notice.  Bucket stops moving, but hydraulics don't . . .

            Now, the more-common inexperienced operator uh-oh is failing to pay attention to the material "glued" to the loader or hoe bucket, and fail to appreciate how that material changes CG.

            DFW gumbo I believe is what the lady was talking about.  Are soil engineers a commonplace requisite?

            Ought to be; aren't often enough, though.  FW better than Dallas, for using "field" engineering by RoT.  Parts of northern Dallas have sedimentary rock very near the surface, too.  Not so bad if it's a nice thick layer of Austin Chalk, that's soft enough to work, with care.  Have that chalk go shallow on you, and it's a very dense & hard blue "shale."   How bad can it be?  Well, across the width of the lot my dad's house is on, the chalk is 27" to 40" deep.  Next door, it's about 24" and 6"--their pool is only 7'-6" deep, too--that blue shale was beating their Cat right up, the rock pick just couldn't get a cut in.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)

    2. User avater
      BillHartmann | May 01, 2007 04:16pm | #7

      3 words.WHALE OIL LAMPS!.
      .
      A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.

      1. VaTom | May 01, 2007 04:28pm | #10

        Been awhile since I've seen a bottle of whale oil in the hardware store.  Or are you suggesting he also needs a harpoon?     Not the Janis Joplin kind.

        Whale's real interesting to eat.  PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!

      2. User avater
        BossHog | May 01, 2007 04:28pm | #11

        Whale oil lamps emit greenhouse gasses. Can't be using them, or the environmentalists will have a cow.
        After all, the purpose of the exercises is to make sure we all have the same definitions... mine.

        1. User avater
          CapnMac | May 01, 2007 07:30pm | #23

          or the environmentalists will have a cow.

          Now, what sort of caring, knowledgable, environmentalist would matriculate another bovine into the cruel, cruel world--especially when said bovine would emit greenhouse gasses . . . ?Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)

        2. Tuneman | May 09, 2007 04:49pm | #50

          It seems to me that 90+% of so called "Environmentalists" are total hypocrites.  Example- I'm listening to Wisconsin Public Radio.  They're interviewing a guy who is organizing Earth Day rallies to "reduce our "carbon footprint"".  He says to go to his website to see local rallies.  Now I'm using energy(carbon) to run my radio, now I'm going to fire up my computer to find out where to go demonstrate (more carbon). Huh?  Example- National Geographic, where readers write in  endorsing the elimination of the human race to save the planet (seriously!).  It comes with another booklet IN A PLASTIC BAG! Huh?  The Earth Day guy is endorsing plug-in electric vehicles.  When twenty million people come home from work and plug in, where is that energy going to come from? Coal? (dirty, polluting, acid rain) Nuclear? Forget it.  Wind farms (I hope it's a windy day, and even Ted Kennedy didn't want to see one from his house). Hydroelectric? (Oops, interferes with fish spawning).  And let's look ten years down the road when millions of electric vehicles are scrapped and we have all those batteries to deal with.  When we look at resource use, we look at cars and lightbulbs.  What about the packaging industry.  I recently bought some furniture which came in boxes.  There was so much styrofoam sheet packing that I put three large tied bales of it in the trash.  Yes, I could have recycled it, but it's a 70 mile round trip to the transfer station. Waste? You bet. When the Penthouse Planet Savers are ready to give up the iPods, cell phones, Blackberries, electric shavers, hair driers, computers, 54" plasma TVs, etc, etc, etc, I'll take them a little more seriously

          1. Danno | May 09, 2007 06:05pm | #51

            One way of dealing with some of the transportation issues would be to telecommute--work from home. If most of the work you do involves using a computer (when I was a planner that was most of what I did), you could easily work from home and fax or email information. I'm pretty sure that the electricity involved and its production would be less polluting than driving a car to work.

            When I was a planner, one of the things that was talked about, but rarely done, was flexible work hours so everyone wasn't leaving for work and getting home from work at the same time. That had several advantages--less congestion on the roads (no "rush hour") with less people sitting in cars stopped for traffic or lights, less sudden load on utilities when everyone got home on hot summer evenings and turned on their air conditioners, etc.. I told people the wave of the future was bedroom communities in scenic areas with people telecommuting from them to work. Looks like I was wrong.

            What I love is people like my brother having to fly to Germany (from USA) or to China to have a meeting with people--seems like they could do a conference call. Seems like by now we could televise and hold "virtual" meetings.

            I try to save up all my errands and get the car out and do everything at once, but I know there are people who make many little trips. I wish we were more like Europe as far as having good public transit, but it will never happen here. When I worked for a transit system we'd run about 80 buses around all day and would carry five or six people per trip. Probably could have run diesel vans. One more reason I'm no longer a planner.

          2. Ragnar17 | May 09, 2007 06:47pm | #52

            Danno,

            You mentioned working for a transit system at one point.  Do you mind if I ask what city that was in?

          3. Danno | May 09, 2007 08:24pm | #54

            I worked for a transit authority in Bay City, Michigan (it was/is called Bay Metro Transit--very Zen--BMT). I got the job as planning manager when the existing planning manager was moved up to the position of Executive Director when the Executive Director was sent to prison for some financial improprieties. Just a day or so before the old Executive Director went away to begin his sentence, he spent the entire operating budget on a piece of properety where he planned on the authority building a new headquarters and monument to himself. It was an interesting job. (One of my duties involved the phone system. I discovered that other businesses' lines went through out phone room and the old director would make long distance calls on their lines! (Among many, many other practices of dubious ethicality!)) The high point of my working there was when I "designed" a radio advertisement that had the Beach Boys "Get Around" as the background music. A local businessman said the ad was "too slick."

            I was also a county planner for Bay County and was involved in solid waste, recreation, and land use planning and was the Acting Assistant Executive Director of Bay County's housing authority. That title, along with my hourly wage for an hour, could buy a double capuchino (except there was no place around there that sold them back in those days).

          4. Ragnar17 | May 09, 2007 09:34pm | #55

            ..he spent the entire operating budget on a piece of properety where he planned on the authority building a new headquarters and monument to himself. 

            LOL!  Sounds like a real winner of a guy!  ;)  He would have done well designing monuments for the former Soviet Union.

            I don't know if this question if beyond the limits of your memory, but what sort of pollution control devices do buses typically have?  I've heard a number of times that the city often "exempts" transit vehicles from such devices, but I'm not sure if it's true.  Just wondering.  It sounds like a horrible thing to do, but with guys like the above running the show, anything's possible.

             

          5. Danno | May 10, 2007 01:05am | #56

            We were always told that diesel was so clean (mainly particulates) that the buses didn't need any pollution control devices. Some transit systems used an additive that mad ethe exhaust smell nicer--like roses or something. I do know that I worked in the office, far from the garage are (though it was attached) and my computer screen was always grimy and greasy with the exhaust from the buses. The computers out in dispatch and maintenance were even worse.

            We had two buses burn up when raw fuel went into the exhaust manifold and caught fire. Interestingly, both were two of like six fiberglass bodied buses--they burned to the axles in minutes. One had been carrying handicapped kids, some of whom were strapped into wheelchairs that were in turn locked into the bus. Fortunately the bus caught fire after all but one of the kids had been dropped off. The driver got her off and went back to get her purse, but it was too engulfed in flames. Then the Board argued about the value of her purse!

      3. User avater
        CapnMac | May 01, 2007 07:28pm | #22

        WHALE OIL LAMPS!

        Yeah, but I bet I can raise more bees than cetacea in my backyard <g>

        There's wax leftover from processing the combs, so that's two products.

        I'm not picturing a big enough ground excavation for a "mayo cooler" big enough for a porpoise, let alone narwhal or orca <g>Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)

      4. Piccioni | May 01, 2007 11:44pm | #34

        I'm thinking of getting some bumper stickers printed up

        This SUV runs on 100% biofuel*

        * biofuel made from baby seals, whales, and other marine mammals

        1. User avater
          CapnMac | May 02, 2007 12:26am | #36

          SUV runs on 100% biofuel

          LoL!

          Mind you, it's tough on the TrueBelievers when you have them go check that you are not loopy when you point out that petroleum is all organic (if involving some inorganic chemistry at retail point-of-sale).

          Now, a TrueHater would need a ride that ran on, oh, Vinyl Siding!!  Or some similarly hideous product <g>.

          Ooh, saw signage declaring the new green-ness of H.Despot--it was printed in glossy ink on sign-quality pasteboard!  Very nearly a completely unrecyclable material that's has a very limited biodegradability.  But the colors won't wash out in under a couple weeks from the UV in the HIDs in the store <g>  . . .

          Vegetable ink on regular corrugated paperboard might have shown some sensitivity, at least--sheesh.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)

          1. User avater
            BillHartmann | May 02, 2007 01:05am | #37

            Organic and Natural always get to me.Those that mention that I offer them a nice cup of hemlock tea.And when they say that they only eat natural foods I say that bending over and chewing the grains off a stack of wheat is eating naturally. Anything else is processed food.Some prcocessed more than others, but processed none the less..
            .
            A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.

          2. User avater
            CapnMac | May 02, 2007 02:48am | #38

            Organic and Natural always get to me

            Yeah, they can get all squeamish about horse manure on their mushrooms, but if you ask them if they'd rather have unprocessed "night soil" or pasturized, shredded, mulched horse manure, their eyes just cross, then glaze over . . . and it's just so sad to see that deer-in-headlights look after a while . . .

            Make them some barleycakes or buckwheat porridge to live on for awhile--"processed" food products can start looking good again. <g>

            Saltpeter still is one of the better cures for american style bacon; but in controlled dosages with plenty of cracked black peper and a dash of raw honey--oh, and real smoke, naturally.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)

          3. Ragnar17 | May 02, 2007 04:10am | #39

            Organic and Natural always get to me.

            When I was in high school, my family had some pear acreage; we kids sold some of the pears at a roadside stand to make some money during the summertime.

            Every once in a while we'd have someone expressing an interest to buy organic pears.  We'd point to a tree that, due to its proximity to the house, was exempted from the commercial spray program.  They'd walk over excitedly until they were close enough to see that the pears were riddled with worm holes and covered with a syrupy by-product of some of the other insects run amok.

            They'd go back and buy the "regular" pears and not breathe another word about wanting organic.  ;)

             

            Edited 5/1/2007 9:11 pm ET by Ragnar17

    3. und76xx | May 01, 2007 05:46pm | #16

      . To hear some talk, we'll all be carrying our hand-tied burlap string bag to the store to get our issued lamp. Mac, that's me! I hear all the gloom and doom both on TV and in the papers that I am getting afraid to eat - contaminated food products from China and no inspections - afraid to walk - long chain carbon emissions killing my lungs - afraid to drink my favorite beer since it might be filtered with nitrates and styrene - afraid to go shopping since my bag is made of plastic and non-biodegradable or paper and killing my carbon dioxide tree eating friends - afraid to sleep since small critters called dust mites are entering my brain and destroying my ability to write and think and think and .... what was I saying?Mike

      1. User avater
        CapnMac | May 01, 2007 07:35pm | #24

        dust mites are entering my brain and destroying my ability to write and think and think and .... what was I saying?

        LoL!  Dunno, lost track while perling the twine for my string bag by candlelight . . .

        Hmm, old tidbit from the dusty rescesses of the mind crops up--the scanadhooverians used to convert frozen birds into lamps by inserting a wick of sorts--might be a begining to the end of the local scourge of grackles . . . <g>Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)

    4. joeh | May 01, 2007 06:57pm | #17

      but processed beeswax is surpisingly clean to burn.

      Well that's not gonna help cuz all the bees are dying from something to do with Global Warming or Halliburton or the like.

      You'll be knitting your burlap bags in the dark I guess.

      Joe H

      1. User avater
        CapnMac | May 01, 2007 07:47pm | #25

        You'll be knitting your burlap bags in the dark I guess

        Well, at least it's not a light-dependant event <g>

        Finding a patch to grow fibers to make twine will take some doing, though.

        Hmm, bioluminescence . . . Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)

        1. joeh | May 01, 2007 07:50pm | #26

          Hemp, it's the answer.........

          Joe H

          1. User avater
            CapnMac | May 01, 2007 07:57pm | #28

            Hemp, it's the answer

            Ok, you grow that in your back yard, and I'll trade'ya honey for the fibers <g>Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)

        2. User avater
          BillHartmann | May 01, 2007 08:18pm | #29

          BTW, here is the orginal article.http://tinyurl.com/36sd4u"Upon reaching the DEP the next day, the agency offered to send a specialist out to Bridges’ house to test the air levels. The specialist arrived soon after the phone conversation and began testing the downstairs, where he found safe levels of mercury — below the state’s limit of 300 ng/m3 (nanograms per cubic meter).In the daughter’s bedroom, the levels remained well below the 300 mark, except for near the carpet where the bulb broke. There the mercury levels spiked to 1,939 ng/m3. On a bag of toys that bulb fragments had landed on, the levels of mercury were 556 ng/m3.Bridges was told by the specialist not to clean up the bulb and mercury powder by herself. He recommended the Clean Harbors Environmental Services branch in Hampden.""She has talked with representatives from the CDC and DEP and spent roughly two to three hours a day over the past several weeks, talking on the phone and in person and contacting local papers to get the word out on what she believes are dangerous light bulbs.And, she said, she is wondering why the DEP “publicly recanted the statement” it made to an area newspaper, in which DEP officials said it was safe to clean up the CFL bulbs using household materials.“I’m really upset. They should not change their story just because it does not fit into a good plan for these light bulbs,” said Bridges. “I’m trying my best to keep my family safe and the state just keeps trying to cover it up.”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.”"Now I have some GE CFL's which say to go to lamp-recycle.org for disposal information. But that is a bogus site.So I go to GE's website and found this link to EPA.http://www.gelighting.com/na/home_lighting/ask_us/downloads/MercuryInCFLs.pdf"Always Dispose of Your CFL Properly
          While CFLs for your home are not legally considered hazardous waste
          according to federal solid waste rules, it is still best for the environment to dispose of your CFL properly upon burnout. Only large commercial users of
          tubular fluorescent lamps are required to recycle. If recycling is not an
          option in your area (see below on how to find out), place the CFL in a
          sealed plastic bag and dispose the same way you would batteries, oil-based
          paint and motor oil at your local Household Hazardous Waste (HHW
          Collection Site. If your local HHW Collection Site cannot accept CFLs
          (check Earth911.org to find out), seal the CFL in a plastic bag and place
          with your regular trash.""Safe cleanup precautions: If a CFL breaks in your home, open nearby windows to disperse any vapor that may
          escape, carefully sweep up the fragments (do not use your hands) and wipe the area with a disposable paper towel to
          remove all glass fragments. Do not use a vacuum. Place all fragments in a sealed plastic bag and follow disposal
          instructions above."Both GE and EPA point to Earth911.org to find local recycling options.
          .
          .
          A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.

          1. Ozlander | May 01, 2007 08:42pm | #30

            Back when I was in school, we used to play with mercury in lab, took some home. Stick a penny in it and the penny will turn silver like a dime. Put the penny in your pocket, pretty soon the silver is gone.

            I still have some out in the garage, it's in the carb sync gadget for syncing four carbs, which means my motorcycle is sucking mercury vapor when I use the tool.

            Most of the people I when to school with are still alive.......

            Ozlander

          2. User avater
            jagwah | May 01, 2007 09:17pm | #32

            When I was young we did that too. My Dad had a mess of it. We'd let it roll around in our hand and poke it into little beads, cool stuff.

            Might explain my current mental state. 

          3. User avater
            CapnMac | May 01, 2007 11:40pm | #33

            Most of the people I when to school with are still alive...

            Ah, "statistical anomolies"--that's what a TrueBeliever told me once when I posited the same argument.

            For 8th grade advanced science class we were given only a 1" puddle for our in-class experiments, and cautioned we'd get no more if we lost any gilding pennies or the like.  This was dolloped out onto a paper plate through a hole drilled into a board, which we then carried about the classromm with minimal supervision.

            Couple of years ago, a middle school science class had an accident where they dropped a thermometer during some experiment.  Hazmat teams were called out, the school evacuated, the kids washed down with decon soap and herded into a safe area until their parents could come take them home (ok, and entire middle school's worth of kids semi-stripped down and mopped with soapy water--the hormone overload must have been beyond measure).

            Oh, after exciting the entire town, the hazmat team recovered the thermometer--it was an alcohol thermometer.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)

          4. joeh | May 01, 2007 09:00pm | #31

            near the carpet where the bulb broke.

            wipe the area with a disposable paper towel toremove all glass fragments.

            This is gonna work, yeah that's my first choice for getting broken glass out of carpet, paper towels.

            Joe H

             

  2. Ragnar17 | May 01, 2007 06:58am | #3

    Very interesting information -- thanks for posting!

    I didn't know that those compact fluorescents had mercury in them -- I'm assuming most people don't know that, either.  Gives me one more reason to hate them!  ;)

    Do regular fluorescent tubes have mercury in them, too?

    1. User avater
      CapnMac | May 01, 2007 07:39am | #5

      Do regular fluorescent tubes have mercury in them, too?

      Yes, at least that's what I want to remember--but, that it's also part of the coating on the glass tubes, rather than a bit of atomized, like a neon sign uses--which is something the tinier tubes in a CFL have to somewhat emulate. 

      If, of course, I'm remembering rightly.

      I imagine someone will point out the correct electrochemistry presently.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)

      1. Ragnar17 | May 01, 2007 07:13pm | #19

        From what I just read on the net, it seems a standard fluorescent bulb has about four times as much mercury as a compact (20mg vs 5mg).

        I'm having a hard time reconciling some of the statements in the original post.  If mercury is *so* toxic -- even 5mg of it -- why does the (federal) government tell people to just go ahead and throw it in the trash?  At transfer stations, all those bulbs are guaranteed to be smashed up by mechanical compaction; all that waste will then be released into the landfills. 

        5 mg of mercury needs to be spread into about 17,000 cubic yards of dirt to reach safe levels?  Sounds like the transfer station and the dump is a very hazardous place.

        1. User avater
          CapnMac | May 01, 2007 07:56pm | #27

          I'm having a hard time reconciling some of the statements in the original post.  If mercury is *so* toxic -- even 5mg of it -- why does the (federal) government tell people to just go ahead and throw it in the trash?

          Well, you're tending to stray into the shoals of heresy there (at least vice the true believers).

          It was not so terribly long ago that significantly higher levels of mercury exposure were permitted, if with precautions on bewaring the doseage.  The powerplant people I know are griping about emissions percentages lower than the naturally occuring oceanic levels (and those are pelagic, deep ocean, levels).

          There's a strong bit of coincidence in the removal of mercury salts as vaccine preservatives and the onset of vaccine-related "problems."  Is that more than a coincidence?  Shoot, I don't know--I draw banks most days of the week.  Hormesis suggests that we can't arbitrarily start from zero exposure equals zero risk.  Al lit really means is I know ever less certainly than before; and that makes me skeptical of those who are steadfastly certain of any one thing with only one reference.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)

        2. Caulk | May 09, 2007 07:33pm | #53

          I think that soil volume is off. I suspect the safe concentration reported in the original post is for concentration of mercury in air, not soil. In NY, the state-mandated max concentration of mercury is 0.1 parts per million (or mg mercury/kg of soil). That means it would take about 141 mg of mercury to contaminate 1 cubic yard of soil to a point at which regulations would consider it contaminated. (Also, even that doesn't mean it's "hazardous waste"- that's another regulatory classification altogether). Not trying to bring down the interesting comic releif of this thread but wanted to correct that initial volume that was waaayyyyy off. 

    2. User avater
      BillHartmann | May 01, 2007 04:37pm | #13

      "Do regular fluorescent tubes have mercury in them, too?"Yes.In many areas flourescent bulbs from business have to be treated as hazardous waste.And, in general, they have much more mercury than CFL's.Here is the NY state rules on disposal.http://www.dec.state.ny.us/website/dshm/hzwstman/bulbs2.htmAnd there is a large push to reduce mercury. And those that qualify, called TCLP, are considered non-hazeredous. But NY still regulates them if you dispose of more than 15/month.Here is an article on one brand of low mercury lamps.http://www.atlantalightbulbs.com/pages/alto3.html.
      .
      A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.

  3. User avater
    BossHog | May 01, 2007 04:26pm | #8

    Her first mistake was calling the EPA. Had she kept her mouth shut she could have cleaned it up and been fine.

    Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but she did it backwards and in high heels. [Faith Whittlesey]
  4. markg11cdn | May 01, 2007 04:27pm | #9

    Here is an Energy Star PDF about CFLs :

    http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/promotions/change_light/downloads/Fact_Sheet_Mercury.pdf

    In summary :

    - A CFL has 5 milligrams of mercury
    - Old thermometers contain 500 milligrams of mercury
    - Old thermostats can contain up to 3000 milligrams of mercury
    - CFLs are safe to use
    - Dispose of CFLs properly
    - If a CFL breaks, sweep (don't vacuum) and ventilate the room

    1. markg11cdn | May 01, 2007 04:32pm | #12

      Also, check information about the author (Steve Milloy) on Wikipedia and sourcewatch :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Milloy
      http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Steven_J._Milloy

    2. User avater
      jagwah | May 01, 2007 04:52pm | #14

      And according to you post

      A coal fired powerplant  produces 13.6 milligrams of mercury to run 1 incandescent bulb while 1 cfl uses 3.3 miligrams.

      For now it's all about getting there, creating a cleaner world. Cfl's aren't perfect but they're a heck of a lot better than what we've been using. As technology improves so will the safety and effieciency of these lights.

      My entire home is cfl's I've been using them for a while now. I've started using the Wobble light on my job sites for the greeness and safety over halogens.

      The lighting industry has a lot to loose if everyone suddenly switched to cfls. I take suspect the purpose of articles that pick a narrow line of facts to try making their point. 

      1. User avater
        BillHartmann | May 01, 2007 05:29pm | #15

        Look at this from NPR." The Environmental Protection Agency and some large business, including Wal-Mart, are aggressively promoting the sale of compact fluorescent light bulbs as a way to save energy and fight global warming. They want Americans to buy many millions of them over the coming years.But 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 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.Skinner says when bulbs break near homes, they can contaminate the soil.Mercury is a potent neurotoxin, and it's especially dangerous for children and fetuses. Most exposure to mercury comes from eating fish contaminated with mercury,Some states, cities and counties have outlawed putting CFL bulbs in the trash, but in most states the practice is legal. "It is only about 2/3's the way down until it mentions mercury from power plansts.And even then they say that the CFL's still need recycling without breaking.How many places are there that will do that?.
        .
        A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.

        1. markg11cdn | May 01, 2007 07:17pm | #20

          >And even then they say that the CFL's still need recycling without breaking.
          >How many places are there that will do that?My local municipal landfill recycle CFL's and the fluorescent tubes as well. I head out there every two months or so to drop off batteries, scrap metal, yard waste, electronics, oil, paint or whatever else can be recycled. No big deal for me to save CFLs and bring them along. Certainly before legislation is put in place banning incandescent bulbs legislators should ensure that easily accessible recycling is available for everyone. (Curb-side pickup with existing paper/cans/bottles is best IMHO)

      2. moltenmetal | May 02, 2007 04:31am | #40

        The incandescent bulbs don't make me mad until they're on in summer in an air-conditioned house.  In winter they're just a whole lot smarter way to make heat from electricity than doing it using an electric resistance heater- at least with the light bulb, you get a few lumens in return for all that wasted electricity!

        I have no problem with allowing people to make choices for themselves as long as they're paying the full and fair cost of their choices.  But until they do, their choices are unfortunately my business.  Incandescent light bulbs, gas-sucking unnecessarily huge vehicles, or huge improperly constructed homes- doesn't matter- they all p*ss me off.  Electricity is so cheap in North America that the choice to waste it on the part of some is basically subsidized by the rest of us.  The use of electricity creates many costs for others who have no choice but to breathe in the mercury, microparticulates and smog that the coal-fired plants which generate a great deal of this electricity emit to the atmosphere- and which pay ZERO for the right to do so.  Nobody who uses electricity from the grid can claim in any way to have a "right" to waste it.  Put a tax on carbon in fuels and this problem magically goes away, and people's choices once again become their own.

        1. User avater
          jagwah | May 02, 2007 06:40am | #41

          Bingo!

          Most arent thinking about how to be wasteful they just lack a little enlightenment. But also it's hard for some  living on a fixed income to go from incandescents to cfl's. $9 for one or $2.50 for a pack of 4. Even if there electric biill reflects the added cost that's not what they see.

          It will just take time. 

        2. Ragnar17 | May 02, 2007 07:44am | #42

          Electricity is so cheap in North America that the choice to waste it on the part of some is basically subsidized by the rest of us.

          I don't follow you here.  Are you saying the kWh cost of electricity is subsidized?

          1. moltenmetal | May 03, 2007 03:32am | #43

            In some jurisdictions like my own (Ontario, Canada), the answer to that question is a full-on YES- the kWh cost of electricity IS subsidized.  And the capital cost of building the plants is also subsidized.  And that's just plain dumb.

            In most jurisdictions, though, the subsidy is a subtler one.  It's in the form of being permitted to dump sh*t into the atmosphere for free.  If it's free, then why wouldn't you dump more?  And why would you invest in reducing your consumption if the stuff you're consuming is so cheap?  Where's the payback?!  It's this fact that makes coal the cheapest fuel from which to make electricity- and it's for this reason that wind and other alternative electricity generation sources seem so uneconomical.

            If I do some demo and just chuck everything into a bin, I pay for disposal.  If I spend the extra effort to recycle or re-use these goods, I pay less.  Why should it be different with dumping stuff into the atmosphere that we all have to breathe?  No choice in the matter there, if you want to stay alive!

          2. Ragnar17 | May 03, 2007 09:56am | #44

            It's in the form of being permitted to dump sh*t into the atmosphere for free... ... It's this fact that makes coal the cheapest fuel from which to make electricity- and it's for this reason that wind and other alternative electricity generation sources seem so uneconomical.

            Well, I'm not sure how things operate, but I don't think that coal- and oil-fired generating plants are allowed to operate and/or dump pollution "for free".  I think they have to pay plenty of money for holding a permit to produce power, etc., and they have to comply with governmental regulations regarding how much pollution they are allowed to release into the atmosphere. 

            I don't know if it's physically possible to contain all of the pollution.  But -- for the sake of argument -- if it were possible to completely eliminate any pollution from the generating plants, I think I agree with your premise: that the plants should be required to do so and then charge the actual amount that it costs to produce the electricity cleanly. 

            Fundamentally speaking, I completely agree that the users of a product should pay the full and actual costs of that product.  That goes for electricity or anything else.

            At the risk of running off on a tangent, I have to comment that the real bugaboo regarding clean power is in the east -- China already consumes more coal than the US, Japan, and the EU combined.  They are bringing a major coal-fired plant online every seven to 10 days.  Moreover, India is right behind China in its coal habits.

            1.3 billion people in China, 1.1 billion in India.  .032 billion in Canada and about .300 billion in the US. 

            So while we here in the west debate the merits of clean power and contemplate shackling our economies with the high cost of doing so, China and other countries will bulldoze right ahead with cheap and dirty technology.  In the process, they may even pollute the western hemisphere as well.  Not exactly a pretty picture.

            http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/business/worldbusiness/11chinacoal.html?ex=1307678400en=e9ac1f6255a24fd8ei=5088partner=rssnytemc=rss

          3. User avater
            nater | May 03, 2007 04:48pm | #45

            Just read this on snopeshttp://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/cfl.asp

          4. moltenmetal | May 09, 2007 04:06am | #48

            If we're already doing our part, living as 'cleanly' as we are capable of, then we can put tarrifs on India and China's products AND services to correct for the false cheapness of their products resulting from using coal to produce their energy.  But if we're using coal ourselves and dumping the crap into the atmosphere for free as a result, we'd be hypocrites to criticize China and/or India.  They consume a tiny fraction of the energy, food and other resources that we do per capita, as dirty as their coal plants may be.

            People concerned about the mercury in CFLs are barking up the wrong tree.  There's far more mercury in a single watch battery than there is in ten CFLs- and far more mercury in a single conventional fluorescent tube than in a CFL.  And there's far more mercury emitted to the atmosphere in terms of the energy WASTED by using conventional incandescents, if the source energy is coming from coal, than any measure of how much mercury is emitted in landfills or people's homes when the CFL  bulbs go bad or are discarded.

            As to the taxes and fees paid by operating electrical generation plants, they're peanuts.  Doubt they add $0.01/kWh.  We need to tax coal at 4x its current price, heavy oil at 3x its current price, light crude at 2x its current price, and natural gas at 1x its current price, before people will even begin to notice or even care.  It's only at rates like this that renewables such as hydro, wind, biomass etc. actually have a hope of competing on an equal footing.  Competing with an alternative which gets to dump its emissions for free is just plain unfair.  And 100% of that tax should go toward helping people kick their energy addiction.  There'd be plenty of work for green builders- the market would respond big time.  Relying on people's consciensces alone is a poor business model for anybody other than perhaps a priest!

          5. Ragnar17 | May 09, 2007 06:58am | #49

            You're correct in pointing out that China has much less energy compsumption on a per capita basis.  However,I'm not as concerned about energy consumption as I am about pollution.  For example, if we were to fully implement a 100% clean energy production method, then who would care how much energy were being used?  If the environment were not being polluted, then how could consumption be labeled as a "problem"?

             

             

    3. User avater
      aimless | May 01, 2007 11:50pm | #35

      How do you sweep your carpet when you break CFL onto it?

    4. gotcha | May 03, 2007 05:23pm | #46

      Mark,
      I have to mercury bulbs from old thermostats that I don't know what to do with. Guess I'll call Plano city folks and get instructions.I also have 2 1 gallon ziplock bags full of used batteries.
      It's hard to be an enviromentilist (sp)
      Pete

      1. markg11cdn | May 03, 2007 05:39pm | #47

        I have to mercury bulbs from old thermostats that I don't know what to do with. Guess I'll call Plano city folks and get instructions.

        I also have 2 1 gallon ziplock bags full of used batteries.

        It's hard to be an enviromentilist (sp)

        You're right, it is extra work to be environmentally friendly but I think the payback is worth it. As I posted earlier I save up the stuff I need to bring to the local disposal yard and drop it off on my way to work every couple of months, so it's not too bad for me.

        Earth911 has a listing of recycling centers and household hazardous waste disposal in Canada and the US.

        http://www.earth911.org/master.asp

        It looks like the closest disposal place for you might be in Fort Worth. I picked a random zip code in Plano, TX and found the following location for mercury disposal :

        http://texas.earth911.org/usa/master.asp?s=ls&cat=9&serviceid=192&type=-1&newpostal=75086

  5. tuolumne | May 01, 2007 06:58pm | #18

    I don't get it.  I've broken a few CFLs during installation...but I didn't call Home Depot or the EPA, I got out a vacuum cleaner.

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