With Earth Day recently behind us, there’s been quite a lot of media attention devoted lately to replacing our energy-inefficient incandescent light bulbs with the much-more efficient compact fluorescent bulbs.

How many grassroots inquiries and local governments
does it take to recycle a light bulb? 

According to industry stats, more than 90% of the energy produced by incandescent lamps is heat, not light, and this makes them far less efficient than compact fluorescent bulbs. In addition, fluorescents typically last 10 times longer. Even though fluorescent bulbs contain mercury, incandescent bulbs are responsibile for releasing comparatively more mercury into the environment. And one gram of mercury is enough to contaminate a 20-acre lake.

Certainly the price point is coming down on these compact fluorescents enough that more people are buying them, and they’re beginning to buy them in droves. I know I am. And so I found myself asking the question, How, then, will this greater supply of used incandescents impact the environment?

Apparently there’s no easy answer. I found the following statement on clutterfreeservices.com:

Incandescent light bulbs contain lead at levels that exceed hazardous waste limits and must be taken to a toxic disposal facility.

Yeesh! And I’ve merely been throwing them away for years, like everybody else. But wait! There’s more:

Fluorescent light bulbs contain a small amount of mercury and California law prohibits putting them in the trash. Many hardware stores will accept them for recycling. Here’s a complete list of places in San Francisco.

Fortunately a number of localities have adopted residential recycling programs for fluorescent bulbs. But are you, like me, unaware of the environmental impact of our discarding of incandescents? Apparently a lot of us who believe we’re acting green are about to dump unknown mass quantities of incandescent light bulbs onto our landfills. We either need viable recycling programs that separate the lead from the glass and metal - as I presume is similarly done for the mercury in fluorescents - or we need, each of us, to be aware of the locations of our hazardous waste disposal facilities.

And then actively make use of them, like I’m now going to do. (Sigh. One more trip in the car.)

Here’s a list of hazardous waste disposal facilities near my home in the south San Francisco Bay Area. If you look online for hazardous waste disposal facilities in your area and don’t find one, call your congressperson and ask why you can’t recycle your incandescent light bulbs. Tell ‘em The Winehiker said to raise Hell!

• San Francisco County (415) 554-4333
• Alameda County (800) 606-6606
• Marin County (415) 485-6806
• San Mateo County (650) 363-4607
• Sonoma County (877) 747-1870
• Santa Clara County (408) 299-7300

Is anybody else thinking about this stuff? Anybody??

~winehiker

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 24th, 2007 at 11:07 am and is filed under grape squeezins. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.