# CFL Mercury Dangers. New Study



## mikenas102 (Feb 8, 2006)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23694819/

Geez! First the tree-huggers loved these things and now they're too dangerous. What's next?


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## tkos (Oct 30, 2006)

I guess we have to look at whether the mercury is worse or better than the extra pollution made needing to power older style bulbs. I did like this cleanup instruction though:

"...according to the EPA. It offers a detailed, 11-step procedure you should follow: Air out the room for a quarter of an hour. Wear gloves. Double-bag the refuse. Use duct tape to lift the residue from a carpet. Don’t use a vacuum cleaner, as that will only spread the problem. The next time you vacuum the area, immediately dispose of the vacuum bag."


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## mikenas102 (Feb 8, 2006)

It's like having a nuclear meltdown in your living room.


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## mikenas102 (Feb 8, 2006)

Looks like they're going to make a big deal out of this. NBC in NY just did a 5 minute report on it during the 6o'clock news.


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## orlando (Feb 14, 2007)

Yeah some lady payed $2,000 to have 1 20watt CFL cleaned up that broke in her house!


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## grim (Mar 13, 2008)

if i recall when my father was in school that gave him a ball of mercury to play with in his bare hands hes still alive and to top that off almost all florescent lights have mercury in them and were not dead yet so honistly its nothing to worry bout its just like lead itll only kill you if you eat it or inhale it in mass ammounts so honistly who cares what they say


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

My first job out of college was at NASA, working on development of an ultra high energy wind tunnel. One thing we had trouble with was measuring a differential pressure of 5 psi between two pressures of 2000 psi. That was how we mesured air flow rates - using a venturi meter. So, we developed a delta pressure meter to do that, but we had to calibrate it. One of the old timer engineers designed a manometer that could take 2000 psi air pressure on both sides and the height of the mercury column would tell us what the differential pressure was, and very accurately. But to do that we had to be able to see the mercury in the area where we wanted to measure its height. That old timer used 2" diameter acrylic bars, drilled down the middle, with the hole polished, as portions of the manometer tube. This was where I entered the stage. I was using that to calibrate our delta pressure meter, with 2000 psi air pressure on it, and my face about a foot from the clear sections to read the height of mercury, and one of the acrylic tubes split! I was sprayed in the face and chest with a blast of mercury. (It felt like cool water). All I did was go home early, take a shower, toss my soiled clothes in the clothes hamper, and thought nothing more about it. This was in about 1960. If you haven't yet noticed, I'm still alive. Lovely green hair, but still alive.


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## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

Hoppy - I think older men with green hair are GREAAAAT!!!!


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## bombastus (Apr 1, 2007)

Inorganic mercury is not very toxic, even swallowing a handful is not going to kill you. The problem is mercury in organic compounds let say methyl mercury, strong neurotoxin (check the Minamata disease). So once the residual amounts of inorganic mercury (from CFL) are metabolized and incorporated into the food chain they will find their way to us humans. I know that eventually we all have to die but not necessary from debilitating neurotoxic diseases. Think about it.


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## mikenas102 (Feb 8, 2006)

We may never know the true extent of the danger and risking our own health is up to us. However, I have a 1 yr old and a 4 yr old and if I were to drop and break one of these bulbs by accident I'm certainly not going to just suck up the glass with a dustbuster and let my kids go back to playing on the floor. Your way of thinking changes dramatically when you put your kids in the picture.


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

All fluorescent bulbs contain some mercury and they always have. CFL's are just miniature fluorescent bulbs. Mercury is undoubtably a problem, but is it also a problem when it occurs naturally, as cinnabar, which is mercury ore, and the San Jose area of California has lots of that in the hills. During the gold mining era in California, tons of mercury were used to separate gold from the ores, and a large part of that was lost into the environment. I just can't get excited about CFL bulbs as a mercury problem, yet. But, I may change my mind.


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## Robert Hudson (Feb 5, 2004)

> Geez! First the tree-huggers loved these things and now they're too dangerous. What's next?


We are all going to have to go back to using candles, and aquariums will have to sit in a window.

Wait a minute, isn't wax toxic, and beeswax would hurt bees right? 



> if i recall when my father was in school that gave him a ball of mercury to play with in his bare hands hes still alive and to top that off almost all florescent lights have mercury in them and were not dead yet so honistly its nothing to worry bout its just like lead itll only kill you if you eat it or inhale it in mass ammounts so honistly who cares what they say


It also makes it so you can't spell.. and drool!


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## cs_gardener (Apr 28, 2006)

I don't know about wax being toxic, but candles are definitely a fire hazard. 

We have a recycling facility that takes CF bulbs not too far away so I store my used ones and then take a bunch over at one time. I do think there needs to be an easier way to recycle them like what's been done for batteries. The harder it is to dispose of them properly, the fewer people will do it.


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## grim (Mar 13, 2008)

It also makes it so you can't spell.. and drool! [/QUOTE]

i never claimed i could spell i know im an idiot but that is for many different reasons other than mercury lol


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## newbie314 (Mar 2, 2007)

Wait mine is at the window 
El Natural 20g-long
But I still use lighting.



Robert Hudson said:


> We are all going to have to go back to using candles, and aquariums will have to sit in a window.
> 
> Wait a minute, isn't wax toxic, and beeswax would hurt bees right?
> 
> It also makes it so you can't spell.. and drool!


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## ruki (Jul 4, 2006)

I'm getting really annoyed with our dumbed down, sensationalist news.

Yes, there is some mercury in all fluorescent bulbs. A few more facts...

(1) Accidental breakage can be avoided if you get bulbs with a semi-transparent cover to protect the fragile glass tubes from breakage. If have situations where can easily occur, no need to worry, just buy that style of CLF. (I use this style in a basement hallway where I have broken conventional bulbs when moving ladders in and out of storage.) This as a real problem is way over-hyped.

(2) We get a significant fraction of our electricity from coal. Coal isn't a pure hydrocarbon, there are things mixed in, including mercury. When ton and tons of coal are burned downwind the mercury released ends up in our lakes, absorbed into the food chain and then comes back to us via the fish caught in that lake. A CFL bulb requires 1/3 the electricity of a conventional bulb, which means it indirectly releases that much less mercury into our lakes and streams. The mercury contained on all fluorescent bulbs is much less than it used to be, so it's something of a wash now comparing the burnt coal mercury and the mercury in the bulb. Very few news coverage stories cover this part of the story.

(3) If we can get bulbs into the stores, we can recollect them for proper recycling. Educate the hell out out consumers to get better compliance and put an RFID tag on the bulb so the garbage truck can scan for bulbs in the trash and fine the hell out of the stupid [email protected] [email protected]@rds who toss them into the trash.


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## Robert Hudson (Feb 5, 2004)

> If we can get bulbs into the stores, we can recollect them for proper recycling. Educate the hell out out consumers to get better compliance and put an RFID tag on the bulb so the garbage truck can scan for bulbs in the trash and fine the hell out of the stupid [email protected] [email protected]@rds who toss them into the trash.


Boy, I was right there with you until you said that! I'm sorry, but I am not going to drive all over town looking for a place to dump a light bulb. If its that big of a deal, the garbage man can sift thru my garbage or give me a light bulb "bin" to put them in, but that would not happen because I live in an apartment and there are no recycling bins put out at apartments, only for homeowners. I have never understood that. Homeowners bear the brunt of recycling laws while apartment renters landlords are not subject to it all.


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## orlando (Feb 14, 2007)

Even better, you dont have to drive. Ride a bike!
In this town the apartment complexes have recycling containers at the dump stations. They have some that have CFL specific bins for bulbs and hazardous waste.


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

ruki said:


> I'm getting really annoyed with our dumbed down, sensationalist news.
> 
> Yes, there is some mercury in all fluorescent bulbs. A few more facts...
> 
> ...


(1) and (2) are very good, and intuitively I think the lower power consumption of CFL bulbs offsets the tiny amount of mercury contamination they can cause. One thing we do too much of is concentrate too much on end product caused contamination, and far too little on contamination caused by manufacturing of the end product. Ethanol is one of the examples of that.

(3) I don't agree with entirely. Fining people is rarely a good way to solve problems. Much, much better is to make it convenient for people to follow good practices. In my city I have to make a trip to a garbage transfer station during limited hours during a few days a week to dump any "hazardous" waste. This does not encourage me or anyone else to follow the hazardous waste disposal laws. I do segregate my trash into recyclable and non-recyclable, because the city provides me with two big cans to do that easily. They should provide much smaller plastic bins for "hazardous" waste, and collect it about once a month, every month. They would get far more compliance if they did that.


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## newbie314 (Mar 2, 2007)

My town offers pick ups.
You call them and they come.
Batteries too.
I only think you are allowed 2 times a year.
I save all my batteries too.


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## ruki (Jul 4, 2006)

Robert Hudson said:


> Boy, I was right there with you until you said that! I'm sorry, but I am not going to drive all over town looking for a place to dump a light bulb. If its that big of a deal, the garbage man can sift thru my garbage or give me a light bulb "bin" to put them in, but that would not happen because I live in an apartment and there are no recycling bins put out at apartments, only for homeowners. I have never understood that. Homeowners bear the brunt of recycling laws while apartment renters landlords are not subject to it all.


This doesn't have to happen immediately, but let's say start doing this, or phase it in over 5 years. I'm talking about how things are now and fining people for not complying with awkward collection policies but was assuming a better future. I do take the time to take my spent fluorescent bulbs to a collection center, but it's wasteful of my gasoline and time. The trade-off of environmental damage caused directly be me makes it something to do.

In the urban area where I live, rental properties that I know of have recycling bins just like everyone else, but recycling doesn't include spent bulbs which have to be taken to special collection centers. That's awkward and should change. At the very worst, stores that sell the bulbs can have bins for collecting old bulbs.

Recycling has always made environmental sense, but now with high commodity prices it makes economic sense. It really makes strategic sense for the nation, so it should be a federal mandate, where everyone figures out a way to comply and business ventures can create jobs in doing it.



hoppycalif said:


> (3) I don't agree with entirely. Fining people is rarely a good way to solve problems. Much, much better is to make it convenient for people to follow good practices. ... They should provide much smaller plastic bins for "hazardous" waste, and collect it about once a month, every month. They would get far more compliance if they did that.


Fining sometimes get results. I've visited many cities in Asia and Singapore is the cleanest. If pollute, you get fined, big time. (Singapore is a fine place is the local joke) Of course it's a different culture where teenagers caught vandalizing get whacked on the back with a cane. I couldn't understand the protests here when an expat's kid got punished this way after he got caught spray painting cars


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