What is the best thing to do with standard non-energy saving litebulbs?

Question

l celebrated Earth Day by coverting to all energy-saving bulbs, now what do l do with all those old ones

Answer 1

Practice Trapshooting

Answer 2

I would have held onto those standard incandescent

light bulbs if I were you. Reason being is the new

CFL bulbs contain mercury. If you dropped a CFL

you would have mercury contaminates in your home

which is pretty bad. I just heard on a talk show yesterday

that a woman dropped a CFL (compact flourescent bulb)

in her home. She was quoted a price of $2,000 to clean

up the mercury from her daughter's room. They had to

seal off the room. I'll stick to the standard bulbs that I

have used since I was old enough to s***w in a lightbulb.

Everyone is going a little crazy over this global warming

thing. Believe me a lightbulb is not causing the problem.

There was global warming before the industrial revolution

that caused the ice age. So the best thing to do with standard non-energy saving lightbulbs is to use them. It's pennies a

day to use a standard bulb.  By the way do you really feel comfortable using a bulb that has mercury in it? Our government.....sometimes

I wonder about them.

Answer 3

So far as clean up from a CFL breakage is concerned, sweeping, without an absorbent for the mercury is definitely not the way to do it. However small an amount of mercury there might be in a CFL it is still that much more that is free in the environment and should be avoided. Another known health hazard for these CFL's is Ultraviolet radiation. If the phosphor is to thin, or absent, then Ultraviolet radiation is released. This is a health hazard that no one seems to know about, or to talk about.

For me, I'll stay with the good old filament type bulbs.

In respect to the mercury that is in fossil fuels, so is Fluorine, which is very deadly. This chemical is in coal and people in China are finding out the hard way that coal really isn't such a great fuel for them. Using the Fluidized bed technology for burning coal, with the addition of limestone, the pollutants can be locked up in the limestone making their pollution hazard extremely low, if not completely absent. Get the whole story people so that all avenues are known, and can be explored.

Answer 4

You can throw your old incandescents away.

Here's what Canada says about breaking a CFL in your home:

"What is my health risk should a CFL break in my home?

Actually, your greatest health risk is getting cut from glass shards. Because there is such a small amount of mercury in CFLs, research indicates that there is no immediate health risk to you or your family should the bulb break, especially if cleaned up properly. Please follow the procedure described below.

What should I do if a CFL breaks?

In the unlikely event your bulb breaks, be certain to sweep up - don't vacuum - all of the glass fragments and phosphor powder. Place the broken pieces in a plastic bag and wipe the area with a damp paper towel to pick up any stray shards of glass or fine particles. Put the used towel in the plastic bag as well. Like paint, batteries, thermostats and other hazardous household items, CFLs should be disposed of properly. Check with your municipal waste management program for proper disposal. If none exist, place in regular waste container. It is good practice to always clean up any products containing mercury with care and common sense."

http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/ENERGYSTAR/englis...

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 the tiny amount that 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...

Oh, and global warming is real:

"I wasn’t convinced by a person or any interest group—it was the data that got me. I was utterly convinced of this connection between the burning of fossil fuels and climate change. And I was convinced that if we didn’t do something about this, we would be in deep trouble.”

Vice Admiral Richard H. Truly, USN (Ret.)

Former NASA Administrator, Shuttle Astronaut and the first Commander of the Naval Space Command

Data:

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Ima...

http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/fu...

http://profend.com/global-warming/

http://www.realclimate.org

"climate science from climate scientists"