Compact Fluorescent Bulbs Require Careful Disposal
Compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFB) save energy; they consume about one-quarter of the electricity of incandescent bulbs.
That's the good news. The bad news is that when CFBs are broken, they release mercury, a neurotoxin particularly harmful to pregnant women and children. Each CFB contains an average of 5 milligrams of mercury sealed within the tubing.
If a CFB breaks in your house, the EPA advises consumers to turn off air conditioning or heating, vacate the room, open windows for at least 15 minutes, and carefully scoop up all broken fragments into a glass jar with a metal lid, then bring that jar to the local hazardous waste disposal site.
That amount (about 5 milligrams of mercury per CFB) is far less than the amount in watch batteries, dental fillings, and older thermometers, but batteries and dental fillings aren't made of glass that would shatter. With digital clinical thermometers and other non-mercury containing electronic devices that measure body and atmospheric temperatures, the relative danger of mercury coming from batteries and thermometers is lower than that posed by the increasingly popular usage of CFBs.
Sales of CFBs now reach about 400 million a year in the U.S., and that adds up to a significant problem if and when those bulbs are not disposed of properly.
California and several states have banned disposal of CFBs in the trash (which ends up in the landfill, which contaminates groundwater), but enforcement of the ban is spotty.
Local governments in California encourage consumers to recycle the bulbs on household hazardous waste collection days or through "take back" programs at hardware stores (like IKEA), but such voluntary efforts are not monitored, so no one knows for sure if more bulbs than not end up in landfills.
Using CFBs, with their many environmental and energy-saving qualities, is still relatively preferable to using incandescent bulbs; consumers just need to be mindful when disposing of them.
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