CFL Safety
National Lighting Bureau weighs in on mercury in compact fluorescent lights
“There’s so much misinformation about mercury in compact fluorescent lighting (CFL), American consumers are being discouraged from using them. The overall effect is counterproductive for the nation. In fact, use of CFLs will result in far less mercury in the environment rather than more.” So says John P. Bachner, communications director of the National Lighting Bureau (NLB).
Consumers’ biggest concern is the impact of the mercury vapor that can be released into the air when a CFL is broken. However, the impact on air quality is well below danger levels established by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration. In fact, the amount of mercury in a typical CFL is not enough to coat the head of a pin. Besides, when a CFL is broken, most of its mercury adheres to the glass and does not disperse into the air. Reasonable caution is all that’s needed to deal with the situation.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s guidance on cleaning up a broken CFL is available at the National Lighting Bureau website (www.nlb.org), along with an article Recycling Household CFLs.
Bachner pointed out that CFLs actually reduce the amount of mercury that enters our atmosphere because they use so much less electricity than ordinary incandescent bulbs. The amount of mercury and other chemicals now being released to the nation’s air to power household incandescent lighting could be reduced by 75 percent or more simply by switching to CFLs, according to information on the NLB website.
Although the amount of mercury in the typical CFL can be characterized as tiny, “we still need to be concerned about the proper disposal and recycling of CFLs,” Bachner said. He said work continues on developing an energy-efficient replacement for mercury; in the interim, manufacturers have agreed to strictly limit the mercury content of their CFL products.
Bachner noted that CFL recycling technology already is being used, and that the only real CFL-recycling challenge now is making disposal easier for consumers. The National Lighting Bureau is one of several organizations now working to develop CFL collection centers in every U.S. community. He added that “time is on our side, given that the average CFL installed today will not need to be recycled for seven to ten years – CFLs can last that long.”
Bachner commented that, during the same seven-to-ten-year period, consumers might have to replace an incandescent bulb as many as five times or more. “So more reliance on CFLs would also result in fewer manufacturing resources being used, including electricity, and less burden on the nation’s waste stream,” he said.
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