Did you know that those GREEN earth friendly lightbulbs contain lead making them harder to dispose of?

Question

This was in an article recently.

Answer 1

Show us the article? >.>

Answer 2

interesting i dont really get the question though

Answer 3

Have you ever looked at the base of a lightbulb where you s***w it into a socket?   A big blob of Lead(!!!) right there.   How do you dispose of them?    If you're talking about mercury, that has been in flourescent bulbs for many, many years.   There is still less mercury in a bulb than would be emmitted from the excess burning of coal that would have to be done if a regular light bulb were used instead.

Answer 4

Are these the same ones with Mercury - a known toxic element?  Read where a woman broke one & called the number of the bulb manufacturer.  After all was said & done she's paid $2,000 for a hazmat clean-up.  Yeh - those are REALLY a plus!

Answer 5

Yes I was aware of this.  The only reason I use them is because they last so long.  I've had the same bulb for almost a year now and it's never turned off.  I haven't really noticed the drop in electricity they claim.

Answer 6

The heavy metal you are thinking of is mercury. Most municipalities accept them in regular trash as the level of mercury is so low as to not create a hazard. In reality more mercury is released into the air by the burning of fossil fuel. Each bulb contains about 5 milligrams of mercury, all the bulbs sold in the US contributed a total of 1,600 lbs of mercury into the environment. Compare that to the 48,000 lbs emitted from coal power plants. Some manufacturers are now engineering lower mercury bulbs. Over all, the risks associated with potential exposure from a bulb versus exposure from contaminated fish and air are quite low. We must lower our energy consumption, be it for concern for the global environment or for the National cost we pay through our dependency. As a note, we just purchased our first LED bulbs, a bit dim, but they are getting better. Hopefully, with advances in technology, we will light our homes with locally generated power and without heavy metals. Personally, I like that with my Prius, CFLs, and LED bulbs, I am making the air a little cleaner and a terrorist hungry! Good luck!

P.S. - If you call someone to clean up a broken light bulb, you deserve a $2k bill! That news piece was ridiculous as they didn't weigh in the facts of the low exposure. EPA allows for 0.1mg per kilogram exposure, so if you weigh 150lbs you could inhale the entire contents of the bulb and still be below the established exposure limit! (I highly discourage this as I believe the safest exposure level to be zero)