Over the weekend I wrote about the problem of mercury in the compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) that the EU hopes to make the standard as it manipulates the market to phase out the less energy efficient incandescent ones.In the comment thread someone cited this report that was issued by the US Environment Agency explaining that the mercury overall from CFLs was less than incandescent so we really shouldn't worry ourselves with it. I'd just like to pick that up for a second in a separate post.
The document made its argument through a comparison of the output of mercury emissions generated in a coal power station to light an incandescent bulb over its lifetime, compared to the same scenario for a CFL. However, whilst this is technically correct, it is also a little disingenuous.
Whilst the mercury emissions into the air are less from the coal power station when it is powers a CFL, there remains a light bulb in a person's home which contains about 40% of the total mercury that would be emitted from incandescent power generation (4mg) and cannot simply be disposed of in landfill or a recycle bin.
If we do some rather crude calculations, by the time we're all using CFLs, there will be, approximately, 1,600,000,000mg (1600kg) of mercury spread across the country in individuals homes which will need to be handled correctly for disposal (4mg mercury x average 20 bulbs per household x approx 20,000,000 home).
It is all well and good to show how the overall mercury emission is less, but the argument not only ignores the question of disposal, but is also based on the assumption that every CFL in the country will be powered by a coal power station, which is clearly not the case anyway.
This is not about arguing a "don't phase out incandescent light bulbs" point, it's about asking what we're all expected to do with the average 80mg of household mercury we're all being asked to buy when the lights go out.
5 comments:
This has all the makings of another fridge mountain debacle. Few local authorities have disposal facilities for lamps and tubes, and consequently most of these either go into skips or ordinary domestic waste. As do batteries.
We don't change the tubes when they go out in our office, we call a man in so we don't get fined throwing them in the trash!
Sounds like the business to be investing in then. Assuming he doesn't just take it and chuck it in the tip anyway.
A business to invest in once you've started up the 'offsetting carbon footprints' business, which sounds to me like one hell of a money spinner.
Companies that manufacture or distribute Electrical and Electronic Equipment (EEE) have an obligation under the EU wide WEEE (Waste EEE) regulations to take back and recycle, process, etc those items upon reaching end-of-life. This service is to be provided free to household consumers.
The legal framework is there to prevent another "fridge mountain". Whether the monitoring of companies is sufficient or not is an other question.
Another question is how easy it can be made for households to recycle things like CFLs as most people are too lazy if it requires effort such as returning it to a shop.
Perhaps councils should start collecting them and send them for recycling whilst suppliers pay recycling companies for each one they sell?
WEEE Guidelines are available here: link
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