Consumers Will Have the Last Word

I’m glad and grateful you’re here. Thanks for taking the time  to look into the dangers behind Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs, from their creation to disposal. CFLs create a destructive trickle down effect, affecting everything from American jobs, to Mercury, coal mining, mountaintop removal and water contamination.

Before Bush left office, he signed a bill that passed GE’s lobby to replace millions of our current bulbs with toxic CFLs. (Toxic because they become ‘Hazardous Waste’ once they they burn out and have very specific disposal treatment guidelines to follow. Disposed of improperly, they will contaminate the water supply).

This is the last thing I want to be going off about but I found out too much  not to shout about it.

Because they have Mercury, if disposed of ‘improperly’, these bulbs will contaminate our water supply according to the EPA. I’ll let them explain.

This is from the EPA website under: Why is it important to recycle CFLs or other fluorescent light bulbs?

CFLs or other fluorescent light bulbs thrown into the trash are usually sent to a landfill or incinerated. These disposal methods will lead to releases of elemental mercury into the environment through breakage and leakage.  There is also the potential for exposure to mercury from broken fluorescent light bulbs thrown in a dumpster, trash compactor, or trash can.  Approximately 670 million fluorescent light bulbs are discarded each year in the United States. These discarded bulbs can release approximately 2 to 4 tons of mercury per year into the environment. Once in the environment, mercury can be converted to an organic form that accumulates in living organisms and contaminates the food chain. To prevent the release of mercury, the fluorescent light bulbs should be taken to a recycler before they break. Recyclers can recover the mercury and other components for reuse.

If you or your neighbors don’t have a toxic waste dump nearby, the bulbs will most likely go the way of the rest of the world’s garbage from Chile to Chicago.  What’s the percentage of recycling done around the world right now? Or let’s say, America, even? Somewhere around 10%? Will we have time to educate the world and open all the newly needed (ungreen)  toxic waste dumps in time? What about those already out here?  The scary thing is that GE’s packages don’t have ANY disposal warning on them. Really!  Take a look next time you’re at Target or the super market.  And Walmart is selling hundreds of millions of them. Where are they going to go?

Contaminating the world’s water supply because of these is too intense to contemplate.  CFLs  have been so thoroughly ingrained into our collective consciousness as something  good if not great.  How did they do that?

Thanks for thinking about it. As consumers we have the power to decide where our money goes, and purchasing these supports GE’s attempt to capitalize on something every single room in the world needs. A simple light bulb.  But instead of acting responsibly, GE has created a product not built to last but with the usual ‘planned obsolescence’,  leaving a trail of disaster behind. Or ahead. It’s our call!

http://globaleconomy.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2009/07/