New Recycling Practices for New CFL Bulbs

Across the world, consumers are being asked o stop buying dated incandescent light bulbs and switch to new spiral fluorescent bulbs. The new bulbs use about 25 percent of the energy and last 10 times longer. In Britain, there is a Ban the Bulb movement. China is encouraging the change. And the U.S. Congress has set new energy efficiency standards that will make the traditional light bulb obsolete by the year 2014.

But the question remains, how to dispose of these compact fluorescent bulbs once they break or quit working. Unlike traditional light bulbs, each of these spiral bulbs has a tiny bit of a dangerous toxin. They contain around 5 milligrams of mercury. And although one dot of mercury might not seem so bad, almost 300 million compact fluorescents were sold in the United States last year. That number creates a lot of mercury thrown in the trash, and the amounts will grow ever larger in coming years.

Businesses and government recyclers must start working on more efficient ways to deal with that added mercury. Ellen Silbergeld, a professor of environmental health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, is fighting to raise awareness about the moment when millions of these light bulbs start landing in landfills or incinerators all at once. The pig in the waste pipeline, she calls it.

The Environmental Protection Agency has concentrated mostly on the disposal of one bulb at a time. If you break a fluorescent bulb, just clean it up quickly with paper (no vacuuming or brooms), and open the window for a 15-minute douse of fresh air. Place the debris into a plastic sack and, if there is no special recycling nearby, discard it in the regular trash.