How come any mercury use was dangerous but now fluorescent bulbs ( with mercury in them) are great?

Question

I mean we had to quit using everything else with mercury in it. I guess eating mercury contaminated fish will be alright from now on.

Answer 1

Yeah, I don't get what's so horrible about mercury. My dad played with mercury that he found in the school cupboard one time (true story) and he's still alive. I dunno, I don't like flourescent bulbs though. Just some stupid politicians telling you to use flourescent light bulbs cuz they're "energy efficient" or something, I guess.

Answer 2

They are great.  Using compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) actually REDUCES mercury pollution.

Fossil fuels contain mercury.  Using incandescent bulbs causes more mercury to be emitted from power plants.  More than is in a CFL.

It's better if you dispose of old CFLs properly so that even the tiny amount of mercury is not released.  But, no matter how they're disposed of, CFLs reduce mercury pollution.

http://www.cityofberkeley.info/sustainab...

Answer 3

Whilst the amount of mercury used in production a CFL bulb is at most 6mg, the average mercury content is 4mg. The total emissions of mercury created by a CFL bulb from electricity consumption over its lifetime is about 2.4mg of mercury. In comparison the emissions from an incandescent light bulb is about 10mg. Therefore overall CFLs result in a slightly less amount of mercury emitted over the lifetime of a CFL bulb. The real gain is the reduction of 38kg of Co2 per CFL per year and an overall saving of 14% on your electricity bill.

To ensure the safe disposal of CFL bulbs you should return them to the retailer or to an appropriate recycling facility. Once collected the bulbs are crushed in a machine that uses negative pressure ventilation and a mercury absorbing filter allowing the mercury to be reclaimed.

In countries where recycling facilities do not exist, you should contact the manufacture who should have details of how you can safely dispose of the CFLs.

If you break a CFL, clean up broken bulbs with care. First sweep up all of the glass fragments and phosphor powder (do not vacuum), then place in a plastic bag. Wipe the area with a damp paper towel to pick up stray shards of glass or fine particles, and place the used towel in the plastic bag as well.

For proper disposal of broken bulbs, the best solution is to save them for a community household hazardous waste collection.

Note: It is assumed the emissions from electricity consumption is from standard electricity supply. Should renewables be used then the emissions of mercury would be 0mg (not including the production of the renewable source), however for the use of incandescent bulbs to be effective we would need to be using a high proportion of renewable energy.

PS ... you can now get CFLs with ultra-low mercury levels.

http://howtosaveenergy.blogspot.com/2007...

Energy Saver

http://howtosaveenergy.blogspot.com

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Answer 4

It always depend upon whose ox is getting gored:

Mercury was taboo when there were other alternatives.  But, compact fluorescents save a lot of energy and help reduce greenhouse gases so the little bit of mercury in them is tolerable according to those who promote the use of these bulbs.  Alternatively, we're told that you can take these to some yet to be built recycling station to get rid of them.  But recycling stations will create new energy demands by themselves, which will eat into the energy savings engendered by the bulbs.

A wise person from Maine wrote a letter to the Wall Street Journal the other day pointing out that regular bulbs may create more heat than light but that they are usually on in the winter when heat is also needed.  So, at least here the heat is not wasted and the argument can be made that a little less oil will be used to heat the house where the incandescent bulbs are still used.