the new compact fluorescent light bulbs that are being touted by the Canadian Government and Wal-Mart, amongst others, contain levels of mercury that require a toxic-contaminant clean-up if any of them are broken.
Moreover, they are very difficult to dispose of properly after they’ve been used because:
Is this true? Is something being misrepresented here? Why does no one know about this?
CFLs do contain mercury, but it’s a very small amount of mercury. However, that article reads a lot like the typical alarmist overexaggeration that runs rampant through so called “news” outlets these days.
The above quoted text appears word for word on numerous other web sites, including some government sites like seattle.gov. I start to get a little worried when you see the exact same text on different sites. Kinda smells like a conspiracy. Conspiracy theories aside, the text seems to derive from the Environmental Protection Agency’s fact sheet on CFLs: (warning - PDF) http://www.gelighting.com/na/home_lighting/ask_us/downloads/MercuryInCFLs.pdf
The EPA seems to place CFLs in the same danger catagory as batteries, paint, and motor oil. Make of that what you will.
By the way, Maine’s department of environmental protection (the guys that supposedly sealed off the room in the OP and recommended $2k cleanup) released this flyer: (warning, pdf) http://www.maine.gov/dep/rwm/hazardouswaste/pdf/lamp_flyer.pdf
This flyer recommends the use of CFLs but does emphasize that they should be disposed of properly.
From the flyer:
This flyer seems to contradict the OP article’s depiction of Maine’s DEP, which in the article seems to treat a single broken bulb as if it were a chunk of waste from a nuclear reactor.
There was another recent thread where we figured out that incandescent use releases more mercury into the air (at the power plant generating more electricity to run it) where a CFL locks a much smaller amount in a safe glass tube, which is then - realistically, I mean, assuming people don’t recycle them properly - locked into a landfill or released into earth or water - both safer places for mercury to be than in the air. Can anyone find it? I know I posted to it, but Search doesn’t like me right now.
So yes, it’s true, but it’s not worrisome, in other words. Remember, teachers used to let kids play with handfuls of mercury in chem class. I’m not saying we should be so blasé as that, but a few mLs on your kid’s floor are hardly worth getting into a tizzy about.
FWIW when he was little my son had a mercury thermometer break in his mouth. Knowing that mercury is a big time hazard, I grabbed the phone and called poison control. Their reply? Don’t sweat it.
:dubious:
I called a second poison control center and got the same reply.
YMMV.
I would not sweat 5 milligrams after that.
When I was in grade seven, the science teacher opened a pound* bottle of mercury and showed us how strange and interesting and beautiful it was. We ended up chasing small amounts around the table to get them back in the bottle.
I’m still here, and there’s nothing physically wrong with me. twitch
[sub]*Yes, a pound bottle, in those just barely pre-metric days. It wasn’t a very large bottle, either. But man, was it heavy for its size![/sub]
I played with mercury several times as a kid, including rolling a significant quantity around on the palms of my hands (fun stuff to play with). I seem to have survived OK.
The power plant need not release any mercury, which makes thje argument spurious.
While I too played with mercury as a kid, Victorian hatters went mad because of mercury and I remember an episode of Colombo where mercury vapour was used to drive people nuts and to suicide.
We could find that this becomes a problem, like lead in petrol and CFCs …
In fact it has already been a problem
I wonder if you were in my class because the same thing happened to me. He left the bottle unattended in a cupboard and a bunch of us got to it. One kid put some in his mouth.
Minimata was a serious disaster but has nothing to do with mercury in CFL’s.
It’s true that we can generate electricity without burning anything. In Ontario, our energy production is 1/3 fossil fuel, 1/3 nuclear, 1/3 hydroelectric. Our 20 year goal is to reduce our reliance on fossil fuel and increase nuclear production to 50%. Now we can start a whole new thread on the threats of nuclear waste. Every form of electrical production has drawbacks.
From what I understand (no cite) the fastest growing source of electrical production is the burning of coal which would release mercury into the air.
Oh, that explains that. The news story is being quoted in the National Post. They’re the ones who called people protesting the Republican National Convention faggots outside of quotation marks on the first page. They also completely manufactured a month’s worth of stories about the supposed overwhelming desire of Canadians to join the United States, which nobody outside their editorial board was even remotely interested in. They just make shit up. Forget about them.
Need not or does not? While I’m on board with increasing nuclear power plants (I assume that’s what you’re referring to) the simple fact is that coal is more culturally acceptable and that’s what’s mostly used, and that does release mercury, does it not? As such, I feel like we need to choose the least bad of what we’ve got, while working for better options in the future. At the moment, that’s using CFL’s and working for nuclear, wind or solar power. It’s better than using incandescents and working for nuclear, wind or solar power, or using incandescents and doing nothing about the source of the power.
Oh, well if it was on Colombo… Look, I’m not arguing that mercury is harmless. I’m arguing that mercury in a little glass tube is harmless, and that the chances of breakage and the level of exposure should breakage occur is not anything to freak out about. I’m 32 years old, and I’ve NEVER had a light bulb - incandescent or CFL, break on me. Not a single one. While I’m prepared to believe that I’m lucky, I just don’t believe that there are houses with dozens of CFLs breaking a month, which is where we’d need to be before an environmental hazard was realistically present. They just aren’t a hazard, especially if they are recycled properly - a point which I admit has been very poorly advertised to the general public. Yes, we need to increase awareness that tossing your used CFL in the trash is not the best way to get rid of it.
Again, in much greater doses than the mercury in a CFL. I agree with you that environmental mercury is a concern. That’s why I want to work to reduce the level of environmental mercury, which using CFL’s does. For now. Meanwhile, we need to work to get people to accept a cleaner source of making electricity at the same time. When LED’s become financially practical, I’ll be urging people to use those. This is not about waiting until the perfect solution comes along, it’s about making increasingly better choices as they become available, even if those intermediary steps have some drawbacks.
Snopes is one step shy of calling the story in the OP a myth. They state that they don’t know what transpired for sure, but that the people cited are real. The writer for Snopes also implies that the story is being used by right-leaning news outlets to point out perceived flaws in the plan to get rid of incandescents. There is some well-supported information on how to deal with a broken CFL, none of which involves a HAZMAT team.
The suggestion about cleaning up the spill sounds great as long as it happens on tile or hardwood. What if it happens on carpet? I accidentally dropped an incandescent bulb from a ceiling fixture, it hit the chair I was standing on and shattered, sending pieces across my bedroom carpet. In that case I was just able to grab the Hoover and suck it up. WTF do I do if I did the same thing with a CFL? I realize everyone is saying that the quantity is small but I would prefer to avoid making a bad situation worse. How screwed would I be if I just used the vacuum? Would it aerosolize the mercury? IANAD and IANAChemist so I’m getting confused about how the amount of liquid mercury would convert to mercury vapor in an enclosed room and what the risks are.
OK, call me paranoid. I took the CFL bulb out of my daughter’s bedside lamp and am considering removing them from our table lamps. We’ve had lamps knocked over by kids and dogs. I don’t want my blood to look like it came from the T-1000 Please reassure me.
Look, I’m not arguing that mercury is harmless. I’m arguing that mercury in a little glass tube is harmless, and that the chances of breakage and the level of exposure should breakage occur is not anything to freak out about. I’m 32 years old, and I’ve NEVER had a light bulb - incandescent or CFL, break on me. Not a single one. While I’m prepared to believe that I’m lucky, I just don’t believe that there are houses with dozens of CFLs breaking a month, which is where we’d need to be before an environmental hazard was realistically present. They just aren’t a hazard, especially if they are recycled properly - a point which I admit has been very poorly advertised to the general public. Yes, we need to increase awareness that tossing your used CFL in the trash is not the best way to get rid of it.