Environmentally Toxic Items Sold as "Green"

Corporations and governmental agencies must think the people of the United States are morons. They are trying to pass off some extremely toxic items as our environmental salvation when it fact they will create a larger environmental mess than what they clean up. The three largest environmental frauds being hoisted on the public are as follows.

Florescent Light Bulbs

These bulbs are being sold as the one of the easiest and most available ways to reduce electric power usage and reduce carbon admissions.

Surprise! These bulbs are mercury vapor bulbs. They each contain enough mercury to cause a harmful situation in a room if even one is broken and releases harmful mercury vapors into the indoor environment. Worse yet, as they get older, people throw the old bulbs into the trash and install new ones. Millions of bulbs are being dumped into landfill and trash storage facilities. They are almost always broken due to their twisty and fragile shape. This mercury makes its way to ground water and the sea.

According to energystar.gov in their article, Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs (CFLs) and Mercury, "CFLs contain a very small amount of mercury - an average of 4 milligrams in each bulb." This doesn't sound like much but they further state that these bulbs are used in more than 3 million homes. Each year this number grows exponentially as the cost of these bulbs decrease and the mistaken idea that they are the greenest things since moldy, sliced bread is perpetuated. Even now if the 3 million homeowner's replace 3 broken bulbs a year that means that 9 million bulbs times 4 milligrams of mercury or 1,286 ounces of mercury are dumped into the environment. This does not even include the amount of mercury from fluorescent bulbs both old and new used in industry which far exceeds home usage. Those long straight florescent bulbs used in offices, supermarkets, etc. are just filled with mercury vapors.

So we reduce electric usage and carbon dioxide emissions but increase mercury pollution.

Hybrid and Electric Cars and Batteries

Hybrid and electric cars also reduce carbon emissions by increasing miles per gallon of gas. However, the batteries required to store energy during breaking contain everything from lead to mercury to lithium. Cars may run for a decade or two but then they are dumped. The steel is recycled but what about the batteries. In addition batteries can only hold a charge for so long then like regular car batteries they need to be replaced. More toxins head for the dumping grounds.

Regular batteries for flashlights, cameras, computers, toys, cellular phones, tools and even talking greeting cards are also adding to this source of pollution. Lithium is psychoactive and can affect our minds radically. Lead is a problem which has been around for a long time in the form of paints for homes and toys. This element detrimentally affects our brains as well. Mercury just adds to the levels of that toxic substance in human foods.

Paper is recycled, as is metal cans and plastics. Batteries are not picked up by my recycling company. So we just chuck into the main bagged trash.

This is a future disaster in the making.

Clean Coal

There may be cleaner coal but there is no such thing as truly clean coal. A very few power plants have carbon dioxide re-capture systems in their emission controls but right now. The number of these plants is negligible. They are expensive and must be retrofitted in existing systems. There is no rush in the corporate world to get this done. The bottom line is still what corporations want to increase not their green profile.

Even if this is eventually pushed through Congress, coal still will be an extreme polluter. Millions to billions of tons of coal ash is a byproduct of burning coal. This silt like substance is extremely high in heavy metals, mercury and other toxic materials. This is almost comparable to nuclear waste except that there is a lot more of it.

Anyway you look at it coal is not clean and will not be clean in the near future.

Environmental Solutions For Complete Idiots

We are being bamboozled. One pollutant substituted for another. It is up to every one of us to take a stand and ask our congressmen and corporate leaders to stop jerking us around. We must do this soon before we reach the point of no return.