Why Compact Fluroescent Light Bulbs Are a Good Idea

I just received a coupon in the mail from my city owned electric utility for a $1.00 off any General Electric compact fluorescent light bulb. Many electric utility companies around the country are giving these coupons for CFL's away to their customers in a joint campaign with General Electric.

Electric rates are going up around the country as energy costs continue to rise and this campaign is being offered to help customers reduce their own electric usage by encouraging them to switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs. These CFL's are efficient and last longer than traditional incandescent light bulbs and they are more environmentally responsible. Because they don't use as much energy to light a home, they don't require as much electricity to operate. By using smaller amounts of electricity to light your home, they don't use as much coal and emit fewer greenhouse gases. So you can save energy and money and help the environment at the same time by switching over to compact fluorescent light bulbs in your home.

Some people have expressed concern about the mercury in these light bulbs. Mercury is used in CFL's and is a key component in the efficiency of compact fluorescent lamps and lights. CFL's contain about four milligrams of mercury, enough to cover the tip of a ball point pin. The amount of mercury in the CFL's in your entire house is less than in one mercury thermometer! Those older thermometers contained about 500 milligrams. You could burn 120 CFL's in your home and still not have the amount of mercury that was in that one thermometer.

And the mercury is safely contained inside the glass tubing of the bulb and only released if the bulb is broken. Power plants around the United States already contribute to the majority of mercury emissions in the United States. Because CFL's use less electricity than incandescent bulbs, they reduce the amount of mercury in the environment.

It is important to recycle your CFL's to keep the mercury out of the environment. In Indiana, the Indiana Municipal Power Agency has provided each community with a CFL recycling bucket. You can call your local utility to find out where to take your CFL's bulbs for recycling.

Every part of a compact fluorescent lightbulb can be recycled and remanufactured. The metal end caps are scrap metal, the glass tubing can be remanufactured into new glass products and even the mercury can be reused in new fluorescent lights.

Resources

http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/promotions/change_light/downloads/Fact_Sheet_Mercury.pdf

http://www.in.gov/recycle/5636.htm

Dan Malone, personal interview and experience as electric engineer