Just announced yesterday, March 1st 2011, on news sites across the internet next year will be the new goal of the US government to phase out the old light bulbs we all grew up with and replace them with CFL bulbs. CFL stand for compact fluorescent light and although this little spiral light bulb may seem like a great alternative to the old light bulbs because they are better for the environment and your packet, let’s take a closer look.
CBSAtlanta.com reports that starting just next year that consumers will be forced into buying the CFL bulbs over the incandescent bulbs. Originally scheduled by the government to be phased out by 2016, apparently we are now looking at a much sooner date. No explanation was given but for those of us that are living more and more green this poses a serious issue.
You might ask, what is the issue, isn’t this little bulb hailed as a green bulb? Well yes it is, but that does not excuse the fact that the CFL bulb contains mercury, one of the planets deadliest poisons. Each CFL bulb contains about 4 milligrams of mercury. Now that may not seem like much but when you look at the CFL guidelines laid out by the US Environmental Protection Agency you might want to think again.
Now how many of us have small children and babies in our homes? A lot no doubt,mercury from one of these bulbs can potentially destroy a baby’s brain from the first exposure. Mercury is found in many substances all over that a lot of us use and do not even know. If you have a filling in any of your teeth then you more than likely have mercury in your mouth.
Emissions released into our air by power plants contain mercury, fluorescent bulbs that break release mercury into the air, our vaccines and immunizations contain higher doses of mercury than the EPA deems safe, yet we still get our families vaccinated. So what does it matter, a little CFL bulb? It matters a lot but to see it you have to look at the larger picture.
But it seems from this news that we are all going to be forced into buying these dangerous light bulbs. Now they are only dangerous if you drop one, if it breaks would you know what to do? Probably not, most of us would not know what to do and the EPA isn’t going to spend extra money on educating you either.
Here is what you should do in case a CFL bulb breaks in your home:
- Get the kids out of the room; get them outside if at all possible. Do not let anyone walk through the area where the bulb has broken.
- Open windows, air the place out according to the EPA about 15 minutes, and get yourself to safety.
- Turn off the AC or circulating air system.
- Do not ever vacuum a CFL mess, the mercury vapors will saturate the vacuum bag and poison your air further.
- Clean up the mess using disposable gloves and a zip lock plastic bag. Make sure to pick each piece up and drop it into the bag.
- Dispose of this at a household toxic collection point in your local area.
This is actually the steps, maybe in a different order that the EPA tells you that you should follow in the event that you simply drop one of the CFL bulbs. Now does it seem like such a small issue? Didn’t think so, CFL bulbs may be better for the pocket but they are definitely not better for the environment and are not safe for people to use.
They must think that a bulb will never be broken by people, if a bulb is knocked off a shelf on a local store, the store will be saturate with mercury vapors, and large numbers of people will be exposed to mercury in minutes. Just picture the aisle at your local retain store, no names mentioned, where there are CFL bulbs just sitting aimlessly on shelves.
If word gets out about the harm these bulbs can do and one is dropped on the light aisle at the store where numbers of people stand there will be nothing less than a stampede. Let’s look further into what the news reports say. One news site asked industrial ecologist Chuck Boelkins with Georgia's Department of Natural Resources what was his take on the news. “So what do you do if one burns out?”
“Instead of throwing them away, do the responsible thing. You can take them back. You can take them back to Home Depot, you can take them to Lowes Home Improvement stores," said Boelkins. The bright side to CFLs is that they use up to 75-percent less energy. Plus, they last longer and there is a minuscule amount of mercury in them.”
Ahh well that does not sound so bad then, does it, taking a look into more facts we can see just how bad this can become. If the EPA states the above cleanup measure is necessary for just one household bulb what do you think the effect of millions of broken CFL bulbs in the landfills all over the country will be? Oh you thought every single person in the country was going to recycle the bulbs?
Well there is no program set up for this procedure believe it or not and the bulbs will still be forced on the public. Mercury from millions of broken CFL bulbs will saturate the soil in the landfills and vapors from all these bulbs will saturate the air that we all breathe. Another example of what money does to the minds of the big companies that just want more.
We all save money, but they make more money because the bulbs cost a lot more than old bulbs and they sell us on the idea telling us that we will save the earth and money. But you won’t hear that they are dangerous from the makers because to them it does not matter.
Now think about all the people that just refuse to recycle, all those bulbs will not be packaged up properly when they are broken or burn out. The people that pick up your trash and operate the landfills will soon have to wear biohazard suits just to do their jobs; can imagine the exposure to mercury that these poor souls will face? It would be a perfect world if we all recycled but that will never happen.
Some sad news for children everywhere also comes with this report, according to CBSAtlanta.com news site, “The transition from incandescent to compact florescent bulbs will mean an end to a very popular toy many of us grew up with. It will be the end of an era for the old Easy-Bake Oven.” For more on how to clean up a broken CFL bulb and other information on CFL’s check out Snopes.com here.
Updates as of Spetember 2011:
http://www.infowars.com/u-s-corps-set-to-profit-from-green-light-bulb-production-in-china
http://www.naturalnews.com/033550_green_light_bulbs_Treasury_Department.html
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