Light Bulb Warning!

[jon_k]

You guys crack me up.


CFL lights contain a minute amount of mercury, about 5mg or less. Manufacturers are constantly evolving the product and, in the process, reducing the amount of Hg in each generation of the bulbs.

10 million CFL's are disposed of each year in America currently. That's 50,000 grams or in other words 110 pounds a year.

Laugh all you want for now, it might seem funny but remember that when you have kids (or grandkids), peers at school will be laughing at your child when he develops severe autism or another disorder that will effect his quality of life.

How many more pounds of mercury will be added annually when this legislation goes in to effect?
The biggest question is how much mercury will be introduced to your water table and water runoff into rivers?

Call me a crackpot, I still say the answer is cleaner power generation, not offsetting mercury production from the smokestacks to the landfills. Smokestacks have filters, CFL's that the kids throw in the gutters to hear the cool POP sound do not.

 

[HM1529]

10 million CFL's are disposed of each year in America currently. That's 50,000 grams or in other words 110 pounds a year.

I already mentioned that each successive generation of these bulbs contain less and less mercury. Eventually, producers will have figured out how to get fluorscent bulbs to work well with no mercury.

Power plants release much more mercury than you quote above into the air every year. Airborne mercury is much more dangerous for people than mercury contained within a light bulb. Filters and scrubbers on plants haven't eliminated that problem, yet.

In some areas, stores such as Lowe's and Home Depot will take back old CFL's and handle the recycling for you. I really don't think it is that hard to bring back some old bulbs when you buy new ones.

 

[DaveNF2G]

Recycling? You mean like the tons of "recycled" plastic bags floating in the ocean, blowing across the deserts, and piled high in landfills with the other trash? Like the millions of "recycled" glass bottles thrown in landfills by contractors who can't handle the volume?

Eventually, producers will have figured out how to get fluorscent bulbs to work well with no mercury.

Then that will be the time to consider switching over to CFLs, not now while they are still a health hazard.

 

[HM1529]

Recycling? You mean like the tons of "recycled" plastic bags floating in the ocean, blowing across the deserts, and piled high in landfills with the other trash? Like the millions of "recycled" glass bottles thrown in landfills by contractors who can't handle the volume?



Then that will be the time to consider switching over to CFLs, not now while they are still a health hazard.

What I find most interesting about the hysteria is that all fluorescent bulbs contain some mercury. Why have there been no protests about the imminent dangers surrounding us in offices and other places that have used fluorescent bulbs for decades? Why have there been no protests about the multiple thousands of children and adults who have smashed standard fluorescent tubes for fun over the years? Now that CFL's are becoming common in households, and are threatening the existence of the incandescent bulb, there is this rush of panic.

Home cleaning products under your sink are more of an imminent hazard to members of a household than a CFL.

Someone cited a wikipedia page containing exposure level limits for mercury. The numbers shown there, however, are for people (workers) chronically exposed to mercury. Unless your main hobby is smashing CFL's, the numbers (chronic exposure limit vs. what is contained within one CFL) are not comparable. Also, the numbers represent milligrams of mercury per cubic meter of body mass. You need to understand what you are reading before throwing it out as evidence against something.

Here's a National Geographic article about CFL's if anyone is interested: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/05/070518-cfls-bulbs.html

 

[trooperdude]

Some of the newer high-power CREE LED bulbs are a nice replacement.

They even have a dayight color temperature, or a soft white.

But they are 10X more expensive than CFL's.

 

[ki4rvh]

It's better than burning a crapload of extra coal on incandescents.

They are terrible RF emitters. If you are into any king of radio the future with these things does not look good. If they are in every house and every businees I wonder what it will do to public service communications. Can't be good.

73

Chris

 

[DaveH]

Hmm. Let's see. Emit products of combustion that have to be measured in thousands of tons before they do detectable environmental damage, or use breakable light bulbs containing a liquid metal that is deadly in miniscule amounts. Which is better? Hmmmm.

:roll:

Out of sight, out of mind Dave? What about the toxic heavy metals including Mercury
emitted (besides everything else) by coal-burning power plants? A rather one-sided
view.

The amount of Mercury in CFLs is not so insignifigant as to ignore, so needs to
be managed, I agree. Getting people to recycle is the biggest problem, and making
sure they actually get recycled and not land-filled in China would be next.

This thread seems to be a fountain of disinformation for which I don't have all
the answers at my fingertips.; such as the efficiency of CFLs v. LEDs. There's a
good Wiki page on LEDs, people can go read it. I Know a typical incandescent is
only 4-5% efficient (96% waste heat), compared to ~20% for CFL (still not very
efficient but still 4-5x better than incandescents, and lower power levels).

I am not in favour of governments trying to ban incandescents, as there are
numerous cases where CFLs etc are not the best choice; another case of
government busy-bodiness.

I'm using a combination of CFLs, some incandescents (normally turned on
for short periods), and some interesting low-level LED lighting (primarily cheap
lanterns and other gadgets.

As for the amount of power saved, I dispute some of those comments. Even if
residential lighting is actually only 4% of total consumption, reducing that by 75%
is 3% of overall total, which is still worthwhile. On a personal level, I cite a
neighbour whose porch light (being left on 24 hours per day, some people
insist on it, for security reasons...), rated 10,000 hours life, lasted 20,500 hours
and saved an estimated $80 over 2.5 years, and about 800kWh (one bulb).

Dave

 

[DaveH]

Getting back to the original topic, RFI on HF, why just blame the CFLs.
How about the proliferation of switching supplies in everything from home
entertainment equipment to wall-plug converters. These all save power,
although I have some that idle fairly warm, and 75% operating efficiency
is typical. Should we be trying to revert back to linear supplies?

Dave

 

[kf4lhp]

Found this on the packages of CFLs I bought a while back:

This product complies with Part 18 of the FCC Rules but may cause interference to radios, televisions, wireless telephones, and remote controls. Avoid placing this product near these devices. If interference occurs, move product away from the device or plug either into a different outlet. Do not install this product near maritime safety equipment or other critical navigation or communication equipment operating between 0.45 – 30 MHz. Use only on 120V 60 hertz circuits.

Me, personally, I like 'em. I'm not in to HF, and they give off considerably less heat than regular incandescent bulbs - and with the lack of trees outside my house, I've already got plenty of heat to deal with.

 

[Zaratsu]

Some of the newer high-power CREE LED bulbs are a nice replacement.

They even have a dayight color temperature, or a soft white.

But they are 10X more expensive than CFL's.

Yeah, that would be nice! I have a Coleman 4-D lantern with a Cree XR-E and when power went out last week I had run it for about 3 hours. Terriffic white light with great color rendition. The only issue is obviously the dispersion of the light, but that can be solved by a proper fixture. Otherwise, I have seen LED bulbs for home fixtures that use standard 3 or 5mm LEDs in a cluster of Red, Green, and Blue to produce what allegedly is very close to sunlight. I think a cluster of primary colors in lower powered / lower tech LEDs is better for home lighting than a single bright Cree that is still subject to the LED lottery as far as tint is concerned.

I saw some white LED cluster bulbs at a boat show a few weeks back, but they did not have UL approval on them, so no thanks! I'll stay incan for now.

 

[zz0468]

I've tried and abandoned CFL's. Between the electrical noise, and the very poor lifespan, they're not worth the extra money. I suppose someone will figure out a way to reduce the noise output, and one can only hope the become more reliable eventually. But they're sure not ready for prime time here. All CFL's have been removed from service, and replaced with the cheapest incandescents I can get at the 99 cent store.