Mercury in lightbulbs?

[planet]

I got this email fwd today:

Health warning about the new light bulbs required by Congress by 2014

One thing the speaker didn't mention is if you break one on carpet these are the directions since you can't use a vacuum to collect the glass fragments: Cut out the carpet and patch the area with a new piece of carpet.

This is craziness! Did someone forget to tell Congress how dangerous Mercury is?! Schools are evacuated when a mercury thermometer is broken but we are going to mandate that all homes, businesses and buildings now use mercury light bulbs; think of the landfills! We used to think landfills were toxic, imagine now what they will be! Great news for the environment! Oh yea, that is why we are doing this. I forgot.

So I went to snopes.com and found this:
http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/cfl.asp

Basically, yes, cleaning up the energy saving lightbulbs is a big deal. Maybe not cut out the carpet big, but quite a possible headache.

[scarlett09]

Re: Mercury in lightbulbs?

There was a segment about the mercury in energy efficient light bulbs a couple of months ago on the Today show. Here is a link to a MSNBC article from around the same time: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23694819/.

Oh, and the mercury in these apparently causes migranes too: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24863378/.

(There were a plethora of articles about this on http://today.msnbc.com. I guess NBC's parent company, GE, does not mind any kind of publicity for one of their products...)

I was also surprised to hear about how dangerous they would be if broken. There is an 11-step procedure that you are supposed to follow, which involves gloves, multiple bags, and duct tape. Geez! I used to work for a certain large home improvement chain and no one EVER mentioned the need to exercise caution when cleaning up these broken light bulbs. Paint, fertilizer, cleaners - yes, but never energy efficient light bulbs. I wonder how many people working for this company and other retailers that sell these light bulbs have been needlessly exposed to mercury...

I am very glad I no longer work for that retailer. I will be handling the 2 or 3 bulbs we have in our house very carefully. And I will send the other half down the light bulb aisle since I am a little clumsy.

Re: Mercury in lightbulbs?

Hopefully local trash and recycling pick up will make these easy to dispose of. I have some in my house but I don't think any have burned out.

I wonder if Ikea will take the used ones? I think the Ikea here takes used batteries.

Re: Mercury in lightbulbs?

Sucks to hear that, b/c we've just started converting all of our bulbs. The IL's did their motel, and immediately saw an electricity savings of $100/month!!!!!!!!!! (Granted - it IS a motel so they obviously use more bulbs than we do - but it's only a 22 room motel).

[Deebs]

Re: Mercury in lightbulbs?

After weighing the pros and cons (DH has a masters in Environmental and Occupational Health), we made the switch a few years ago. DH should basically be a test person for how to break things, and he has never broken one. This is someone who can wear out a pair of shoes in a week, and dropped his brand new blackberry in the toilet. Until something better comes around, we're sticking with em!

[SuzySunshine]

Re: Mercury in lightbulbs?

We made the switch too, they're very sturdy and we've never broken one. Ikea does take them to recycle and some of the national home chains will take them as well, our county will also take them.

Between our new windows and those bulbs we have not see any increase in our utility costs even though I'm home all the time now.

[DCJenn]

Re: Mercury in lightbulbs?

We're switching over as the other bulbs wear out- I think we're at about 95% switched at this point. Our electric bills are holding steady but I think that's more attributable to the new AC extra super duper efficient compressor.

I knew about the disposal issues but I haven't had any break (yet)

Jenn

[planet]

Re: Mercury in lightbulbs?

Some stinky old baby in our house knocked over his old lamp in his room one night and busted the bulb. aranoid: I freaked out and asked their mom what I should do with the bulb & cleaning up because of the mercury and she blanked, too. In the end she just told me to clean it up w/ the regular dust pan and put it in the trash.

Yeah, see that bugs me. I spend a lot of time getting good food for the family and checking toys for toxins, yet I didn't have a clue about this. Of course, we don't have the energy saving bulbs because I can't stand the red tint.

[SuzySunshine]

Re: Mercury in lightbulbs?

We didn't know about it until we saw it on the news a month or so ago, we've been using them for at least a year.

I see the hazard, but they don't break as easily as the "old" bulbs. They've also come out with different light levels to get rid of some of the bright white light they used to have.

[JaneDoe]

Re: Mercury in lightbulbs?

I learned about mercury in the CFL bulbs about a month ago, about 2 weeks after my ds broke a spare CFL bulb we had in the pantry and it shattered all over the floor. My father-in-law was watching him at the time. I think my FIL swept it up and put the shards in the trash. We had no idea.

After learning about the mercury exposure, I'm concerned about my ds. He is so young.