The Pros and Cons of Compact Fluorescent Lighting

It might be a bold statement that compact fluorescent lightbulbs made me who I am and what I am now. Maybe it's a selling point, if you want your children to turn out just like me, you should get these CFL lightbulbs in your home now, and make certain to have plenty of spot extra-bright halogen lamps as well.

Why haven't we installed user-friendly grow lights? There are lights that are spectrally like natural sunlight that can be used indoors. I keep on asking myself this question, and the more I read into the reasons why, the less I understand.

LIPA (Long Island Power Authority) offers rebates for the purchase of CFL light bulbs to consumers. It's probably a political agenday, creating more mercury-based products, due to a drop in the sales of mercury thermometers, to a certain extent.

Why not offer a rebate for halogen or LED light bulbs?

There are many choices for lighting. Here is a list of lightbulb manufacturers, that if you look at, you will be able to decide for yourself what is the best lightbulb for you for a particular fixture.

Compact fluorescent light bulbs contain a small amount of mercury. We on Long Island are surrounded by water, we know how well consumers recycle light bulbs. Thus, we realize that these CFL light bulbs are going to be sold to consumers who have no idea that these light bulbs must be recycled, as per the law. These lightbulbs can be operated safely, with no discharge of mercury, as long as consumers use the proper care.

Educating the public about the safe and legal recycling of these lightbulbs is necessary.

There is indeed a great savings by way of using these lightbulbs. Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs, by law, are to be recycled. However, will people be doing this, or will mercury be seeping from our landfills into the water supply?

We hope that people will recycle these Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs (CFL's). Your city, your town, your county, may have a special, sealable thick plastic bag for the recycling of these mercury-filled Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs. Then again, there might be a special bin at your neighborhood home improvement center.

These lightbulbs pose special hazards in fixtures that are accessible to pets or children, who might accidentally break the lightbulb, and allow the mercury to seep out. Mercury can be poisonous if not handled properly by mature adults wearing the proper protective gear. You do not want to have your children or your pets able to break your CFL lightbulb. You need to inform your teenagers and clumsy people to avoid breaking these lightbulbs. I've already broken one, during a demonstration of just how wonderful these things are, during which, I reminded everyone to dispose of the compact fluorescent lightbulb in the proper recycling bin, as they contain mercury, for which, I was charged $5 per day for. This little warning was not part of the program offered by the company expounding the "environmental friendliness" of the product. Excuse me, these things called lightbulbs break, they contatin hazardous materials, such as mercury at a level that could be poisonous. Consumers need to be aware of the fact that caution must be exercised when using the Compact Fluorescent Lightbulb (CFL) around children, pets, sick people, pregnant women, and those with medical conditions.

The great thing about the CFL lightbulb being so long-lived is that it needs to be changed less often. The bad news is that it needs to be a two-person operation in many homes, with one person holding the big, thick plastic bag, and the other person changing the lightbulb, with the door locked so that nobody else disrupts the operation. Mercury is hazardous.

Rebates available from the Energystar program of the federal government are not just restricted to Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs.

I'm not really sure what mercury poisoning is, however, it could happen, if a user of the Compact Fluorescent Lightbulb is not careful with the product.

LED lighting, some of which is battery-powered, some of which is plug-in, is a reasonable alternative. Feit Electric sells a few of their LED lighting products at Home Depot. I found the stick hallway light by Feit to be an excellent alternative to 25 watt or 40 watt safety lighting, and the Feit night light lightbulb is the best and most durable night light bulb we've ever seen.