COMPACT FLUORESCENT LAMPS (CFL’S)

As state and foreign governments enact forced phase-outs of incandescent light bulbs, consumers are being kept in the dark about the many downsides of compact fluorescent lamps…..replacements being billed as an environmental and energy-savings panacea.

CFLs are all the rage. They are the spirally shaped, long-lasting bulbs everyone is being urged, cajoled and guilt-tripped into purchasing to replace Thomas Edison's incandescents, which are being compared to sports utility vehicles for their impracticality and energy inefficiency. However, there is no problem disposing of incandescents when their life is over. You can throw them in the trash can and they won't hurt the garbage collector. They won't leech deadly compounds into the air or water. They won't kill people working in the landfills.

The same cannot be said about the mercury-containing CFLs. They bear disposal warnings on the packaging. But with limited recycling prospects and the problems experienced by Brandy Bridges sure to be repeated millions of times, some think government, the green community and industry are putting the cart before the horse marketing the new technology so ferociously.

While CFLs arguably use less energy and last longer than incandescents, there is one serious environmental drawback – the presence of small amounts of highly toxic mercury in each and every bulb. This poses problems for consumers when breakage occurs and for disposal when bulbs eventually do burn out.

Most consumers, even those already using the CFLs, do not realize the long-term dangers the bulbs pose to the environment and the health of human beings.

So what happens if you break one? As a result of various studies, the cleanup guidance is as follows:

• Leaving the area/room and waiting 15 minutes after breakage before returning to begin cleaning up (mercury levels in the air will have fallen from their highest levels by then);

• Using a glass container, metal screw top lid with a seal, such as a canning jar, to contain the lamp pieces, powder, and cleanup materials;

• Immediately removing the lamp breakage from the home once containerized, especially if the homeowner did not have a glass container with a good seal;

• Continue ventilating the room for several hours;

• homeowners consider removal of the area of carpet where the breakage occurred as a precaution, particularly in homes with infants, small children or pregnant women;

• If carpet is not removed, the homeowner should consider ventilating the room during vacuuming for the next several vacuuming events;

• homeowners consider not utilizing fluorescent lamps in situations where they could easily be broken, in bedrooms used by infants, small children, or pregnant women, or over carpets in rooms frequented by infants, small children and pregnant women; and

• Avoiding the storage of too many used/spent lamps before recycling as that could increase the chances of breakage.

Mercury concentration in the study room air often exceeds the Maine Ambient Air Guideline (MAAG) of 300 nanograms per cubic meter (ng/m3) for some period of time, with short excursions over 25,000 ng/m3, sometimes over 50,000 ng/m3, and possibly over 100,000 ng/m3 from the breakage of a single compact fluorescent lamp. A short period of venting can, in most cases, significantly reduce the mercury air concentrations after breakage.

Concentrations can sometimes rebound when rooms are no longer vented, particularly with certain types of lamps and during/after vacuuming. Mercury readings at the one foot height tend to be greater than at the five foot height in non vacuumed situations.

Cleaning up a broken CFL by vacuuming up the smaller debris particles in an un-vented room can elevate mercury concentrations over the MAAG in the room and it can linger at these levels for hours. Vacuuming tends to mix the air within the room such that the one foot and five foot heights are similar immediately after vacuuming. A vacuum can become contaminated by mercury such that it cannot be easily decontaminated. Vacuuming a carpet where a lamp has broken and been visibly cleaned up, even weeks after the cleanup, can elevate the mercury readings over the MAAG in an un-vented room.

Elemental mercury is a liquid that releases mercury vapor at room temperature. This vapor can be inhaled into the lungs and then passed into the blood stream. Elemental mercury can also be absorbed through the skin and then into the blood stream. However, if this form of mercury is ingested, it is not absorbed by the stomach, and usually travels through the digestive system without being passed into the blood stream to a large degree. Symptoms of elemental mercury poisoning include the following: tremors; emotional changes (e.g., mood swings, irritability, nervousness, excessive shyness); insomnia; neuromuscular changes (such as weakness, muscle atrophy, twitching); headaches; disturbances in sensations; changes in nerve responses; and performance deficits on tests of cognitive function.

According to environmental agencies, elemental mercury can convert in the environment to the more toxic methylmercury and cause problems for wildlife as well as humans.Human exposure to methylmercury can cause long-lasting health effects, especially on foetal development during pregnancy. Mercury releases, whether as a discharge through wastewater discharges or in vapor form, deposit in waterways where some portion converts to methylmercury.

While environmental agencies are on the CFL bandwagon as a means of reducing carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere, which it believes contributes to global warming; it also quietly offers advice on cleanup of broken bulbs that might give consumers pause to consider dumping those incandescents any time soon.

Most agree more energy-efficient light bulbs can significantly curb air pollution, but fewer people are talking about how to deal with them at the end of their lives, there is no plan to address air and water pollution concerns that could develop if consumers improperly dispose of the mercury-containing devices and just how many people do you know will put those burnt out CFL’s into glass jars before disposing?

Australia plans to ban all incandescent globes by 2010. That means I am going to be stocking like crazy for a while. In our home, we don’t leave lights on when leaving a room, use 40 watt bulbs in most places and actually don’t use lighting when watching TV or using the PC, in fact, I suspect we use a miniscule amount of light power compared to the average home. The small amount of lighting power we do use in our home is by far preferable to the long lasting damage created by lights containing mercury in my humble opinion.

Given the move is toward more LED lighting, I am going to continue to use the old fashioned bulbs for the next 3-5 years they propose before LED is the standard lighting.....what do you think?