$2000 to clean up a broken CFL light bulb?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ May 1 2007, 12:19 AM) [snapback]433074[/snapback]</div>

Umm yeah I think the small amounts of mercury in a CF bulb are totally negated by the huge drop in energy requirements to use them. I have CF bulbs that I am using that were bought in 2002 and are still working perfectly daily. Any fool can drop a CF bulb on the floor, too bad for them. If they're too skittish to get out the dust pan and clean it up they shouldn't be buying them.

Dave

 

Gee, I guess playing with mercury balls in chem lab wasn't so smart. And my friend Harvey agrees.

The Mad Hatter

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(RonH @ Apr 30 2007, 10:49 PM) [snapback]433083[/snapback]</div>

You're crazy!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(RonH @ May 1 2007, 07:49 AM) [snapback]433083[/snapback]</div>

Elemental mercury can be found in:
* Glass thermometers
* Electrical switches
* Fluorescent light bulbs
* Older dental fillings
* Some medical equipment

Inorganic mercury can found in:
* Chemistry labs
* Some disinfectants
* Folk culture medicines
* Red cinnabar mineral
....
Elemental mercury is usually quite harmless if touched or swallowed. It is so thick and slippery that it usually falls off your skin or out of your stomach without being absorbed.
...
Unlike elemental mercury, inorganic mercury is usually poisonous when swallowed. Depending on the how much is swallowed, symptoms may include:
* Burning in the stomach and throat
* Bloody diarrhea and vomiting

MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia

The question is: what were you playing with? It may or may not have been dangerous...

 

A common practice for emergency responders in the event of a potential hazardous materials situation is to consult the product's Material Safety Data Sheet and/or contact the manufacturer of the product for advice on handling, decon, and cleanup. I can't believe that was done here. Here is an excerpt from GE's MSDS:

Neither the mercury nor the phosphor concentration in air produced as a result of breaking one or a small number of fluorescent lamps should result in significant exposures to the individual.

Further consumer information from GE's website:

What should I do if I break a CFL bulb? Fluorescent lamps contain mercury. Mercury at atmospheric pressure is a silver colored liquid that tends to form balls. Mercury is a hazardous substance. When one lamp is broken, the best thing to do is to wear chemical resistant glove to clean it up. The gloves can be vinyl, rubber, PVC, or neoprene. The gloves you buy in the supermarket for household cleaning are sufficient. The gloves protect your skin from absorbing mercury and from getting cut by the glass. The remains of one lamp can be disposed as normal waste since the amount of mercury is small.

Apparently all parties described in this article overreacted.

 

They all over reacted. That said, the mercury contained in CFLs and other lights is undesirable. A lot of work is being done to find a safer replacement, but for now it's mercury.

Tom

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(JimboK @ May 1 2007, 05:34 AM) [snapback]433130[/snapback]</div>

Thanks for the info (and same goes to lowlander as well). I've actually broken one of these before and had no idea there was any hazardous chemical in it. This story would have really bugged me but for your two posts.

 

Hey! It's all Wal-Mart's fault!

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE("The Article")</div>

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ May 1 2007, 01:19 AM) [snapback]433074[/snapback]</div>

I just want to say how incredibly reasonable this PriusChat crowd is. Reference to this article appeared in the Washington Post yesterday, and you would not believe the stream of ignorant comments that appeared. Worth noting is that one poster there suggested, based on some information that I did not quite understand, that this was an urban legend and did not actually occur as reported. Nobody there could find a link to the original local Maine newspaper article that is said to have first reported the story, so there was no way to tell whether or not this was an urban legend, an exaggeration, or a factual reporting of an incident.

Couple more comments. Based on the comments in the Washington Post, some people appear to be treating CFLs as if they are some exotic new technology, as opposed to a lighting method that has been in use for more than half a century. There has always been mercury in fluorescent bulbs, less now than in the past. My town (Vienna VA) used to require all fluoresents to be disposed of as hazardous waste, but dropped that a few years ago as the average mercury content of the bulbs declined. The other comment is that the industry says (and I calculated yesterday from EPA data) that even if you dispose of the bulbs as regular trash as opposed to hazardous waste, using CFLs reduces total enviromental mercury emissions due to the reduction in mercury emissions from power plants. My back-of-the-envelope calculation said it was not a lot -- maybe 8 mg from coal avoided vs 5 mg in the bulb, figuring half of electricity comes from coal -- but it was there. And if the bulbs are properly disposed of that's not much of an issue. Specialized recyclers claim to be able to extract 99.99% of the mercury back out of the dead bulbs.

What we really ought to do is pass a law such that every time you buy a pack of regular incandescent bulbs, you are required to extract a $20 from your wallet and burn it at the checkout counter. That might get the message across.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(chogan @ May 1 2007, 12:10 PM) [snapback]433267[/snapback]</div>

Google is your friend. A search for "Brandy Bridges" on news.google.com found the article. 8th article in the results.

Fluorescent Bulb Break Creates Costly Hassle (The Ellsworth American)

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(lowlander @ May 1 2007, 02:56 AM) [snapback]433109[/snapback]</div>

Sounds like I played with elemental mercury. Once spilled, not even Bounty could pick it up.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Marlin @ May 1 2007, 09:42 AM) [snapback]433203[/snapback]</div>

Wrong.

It's all Bill Clinton's fault.

 

My community has a hazardous materials "dump" where you can take things like CFL bulbs, batteries, and other things that contain chemicals you don't want ending up in your groundwater (like most electronics, latex or oil paints, etc.) Most things are free to dispose of, although they do collect $10 now for large appliances, computers, etc.

Even small amounts of hazardous waste, when concentrated in a landfill, can be a bad thing, so communities should implement this kind of program.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ May 1 2007, 08:57 PM) [snapback]433704[/snapback]</div>

I knew you'd come around, Godiva.

 

The article screams sensationalism much like the Hummer vs Prius BS. There isn't a dangerous amount of mercury in CFLs. Here's what Energy Star Canada site has:

The lady that got the crazy cleanup bill was probably talking to the wrong person. The Maine Government site even has instruction for cleaning it up yourself.

 

In most households, the greatest risk of mercury would come from breakage of an 'old school' thermometer. I believe that one can still purchase yellow sulfur powder at pharmacies. Dust a bit of this over the shiny Hg globules and in a few days it will turn brownish. Vaccuum that up and apply more yellow powder. Repeat repeat; when the sulfur stops turning brown, you're done. Or else you've missed a spot

"Flowers of sulfur" is also handy dusted on the clothes when you intend to walk about in tick country. However the explosive-checkers at airport security may be sensitive to it nowadays, so it might be bad advice to take it along.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Marlin @ May 1 2007, 01:58 PM) [snapback]433383[/snapback]</div>

Thanks, that phrase didn't appear in the Post discussion. And I guess I wasn't motivated enough to track it down after that. Upon reading, the article itself was pretty reasonable, although clearly the results of the incident were not.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ May 1 2007, 11:40 PM) [snapback]433756[/snapback]</div>

My thoughts exactly. And, the public isn't being educated as to the hazards of these light bulbs. Almost every person that I speak with concerning them has no idea they contain mercury. The bulbs may not contain a significant amount of mercury individually, but aggregated they can be hazardous to our land and water.

Should I be embarrassed to tell you all that broke one of these? I have them stored in my linen closet for recycling and when I went to get something out of the closet and it fell. Mercury didn't escape. There was no clean up except for glass shards.



<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ May 1 2007, 01:45 PM) [snapback]433374[/snapback]</div>

I thought they still did.