Compact fluorescents are the new sliced bread of energy efficiency, with Wal-Mart committed to selling 100 million in the next year. But as I mentioned in that post on Wal-Mart, the Wall Street Journal Energy Roundup discusses the one drawback in mass producing CFLs - they contain mercury.
Mercury is toxic, which means that CFLs should not be discarded and landfilled (or incinerated) but should be recycled. But that's a big change for a population used to discarding burnt out bulbs.
The good news is that the CFL tends to reduce overall mercury emissions into the environment because reducing electricity use tends to reduce coal burning, which also releases mercury. But we still shouldn't be trading one mercury emission for another.
Update 10:23: For Anagram, who likes his solutions on a silver platter, some possible ways to deal with the mercury in CFLs:
1) Make a CFL without mercury (although one manufacturer says that's not possible)
2) Create an aggressive CFL recycling campaign
3) Your idea here, smarty pants
4) Pay for (1) - (3) with a small tax on light bulbs based on the quantity of toxic material
1 comment:
You're such a typical liberal. Complain about the problem; complain about the solution; offer no solutions of your own.
Sheesh.
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