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Re: All Fluorescent Light Bulbs are Not Alike

Re: All Fluorescent Light Bulbs are Not Alike

Submitted by Joseph on Wed, 05/16/2007 - 09:51.

I've been hearing some new updates about "the concern" over mercury contained in fluorescent light bulbs. The amount of mercury in a CFL is very minimal - approximately 4 milligrams. The CFL manufacturers are now working on a substitute for the mercury in CFL and they feel optimistic in being able to come up with a different non-mercury solution. For point of comparison a standard watch battery contains about 25 milligrams of mercury. So what can/should we do in the meantime? We should definitely continue to use CFL in place of standard light bulbs. That absolutely continues to be a no brainer - the generators and pollutants required to power the extra electricity for a standard light bulb is far and away more detrimental to our planet and us than the concern about the small CFL mercury. What we can do to be even more eco-friendly with our CFLs would be to find a high-end recycling center which will take the time to actually go through the recyclables and properly separate them. Don't forget that a standard CFL under normal use will continue to work for a long period of time before having to be replaced, so for most of us any concern about mercury in CFLs won't even be an issue.

- Joseph

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All Fluorescent Light Bulbs are Not Alike By: Joseph (18 replies) Thu, 03/22/2007 - 21:35