Mercury and CFLs

Like most of you, we are also concerned about mercury in the environment.  So why do we promote the use of CFLs which each contain a small amount of mercury?

The main source of mercury in the environment comes from burning coal to make electricity.  When the coal is burned, the mercury inside it is released into the air where it drifts and settles into our waterways and oceans and gets into the fish we eat.  So because CFLs use less electricity than the incandescent bulbs they replace, there is actually less mercury being released into the air.

Of course, we still need to properly dispose of CFLs when they burn out because each CFL contains 5 milligrams of mercury.  And a CFL breaks while in our home, the EPA advises opening your windows and leaving the room for 15 minutes, then returning and carefully disposing of the broken bulb in a sealed plastic bag in your regular trash.  (For details on how best to do this, see the EPAs web site.)

Here are some numbers to give you a sense of the scale of the mercury coming from burning coal and the mercury contained in CFLs.  In 2004, Massachusetts power plants emitted 659 tons of mercury according to the EPA.  In order to put 659 tons of mercury in the environment, we would have to improperly throw away 299 million CFLs. 

Nevetheless, residential fluorescent lightbulb recycling rates need much improvement.  And there is some good news on the recycling front.  First, unlike an incandescent which needs replacing roughly every 9 months, the CFLs we are providing are rated at 10,000 hours or roughly 10 years.  (The rating scheme means that after 10,000 hours, half the bulbs will have burned out and half will still be working.) Second, Home Depot has announced that they will recycle CFLs at their 1,500 stores nationwide.  Other retailers such as Ikea are already recycling CFLs.  And an increasing number of communities have a home hazardous waste collection day.

Each home receiving our bulbs gets a flyer that tells them about the bulbs and reminds them that they should be recycled when they burn out and we customize each flyer with the nearest CFL recycling location.