The environment has been one of the top issues of the last few years, as people are becoming more aware of the severity of issues like climate change. In fact, a recent study showed that issues about the environment were one of the top three internet searches of the last year. Part of this awareness came from the U.N. summit on climate change which took place last December in Copenhagen. Even though most people declared the summit a failure it did succeed in getting a lot of attention and increasing awareness worldwide about the importance of carbon emissions. Because awareness was increased many segments of the recycling industry enjoyed record years. One such industry is the United Kingdom lighting industry which enjoyed one of its best years when it comes to the recycling of lighting.
Recolight, which is the name of the lighting portion of the WEEE compliance scheme, says that 2009 was a record year. The scheme was able to collect more than twenty five million gas discharge lamps in 2009 and has collected more than fifty million lamps since 2008. This is a significant number, as these lamps contain mercury which ends up in landfills and eventually can contaminate water supplies. Recolight estimates that a fifth of a tonne of mercury was diverted from landfills by the efforts of the scheme.
Recolight says that the banner year shows that the lighting industry is committed to its goals and that the recycling of lamps has become more simple and efficient.
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