How to Dispose of Your CFLs and More!

Hey you guys and gals, I’m going to touch on how to dispose of your CFLs when they burn out but before I do, I’m going to add a couple small notes that I missed out on in my previous post. Firstly, I forgot to include a major note on the health implications, or lack thereof, of mercury in CFLs.

If you had a chance to click and read through the link that I included at the end of my last post, you will have read the part that describes how using CFLs actually PREVENT mercury from entering our air! The greatest source of airborne mercury in our environment comes from combusted fossil fuels such as coal, diesel and natural gas, and this source of mercury is the most harmful to our health. A large portion of these gas emissions come from power plants. Since CFLs use 75% less energy than an incandescent light bulb and lasts at least six times longer, a power plant will emit 10 mg of mercury to produce the electricity to run an incandescent bulb, compared to only 2.4 mg of mercury to run a CFL bulb for the same time! So as you can see, we can AVOID health risks when we consider the amount of mercury that is prevented from entering our environment while using CFLs. This prevention heavily outweighs the minimal health risks of possibly breaking a bulb in our home.

Secondly, in my last post I gave you 4 easy steps on how to deal with a broken CFL. But I left out what a “cautious and thorough clean-up” meant! How silly of me!

Anyways, in order to safely and effectively clean up a broken CFL, you must ensure you take the following precautions:

If broken on a hard surface:

1. Do not use a vacuum or broom!
2. Cautiously scoop up pieces of glass and powder using either cardboard or a stiff piece of paper, and put them in a plastic bag (I would double up on the bags just to be safe) or a glass jar (with a lid of course)
3. Then use tape (duct or just sticky in general) to retrieve any small pieces of glass and powder that you may have missed
4. Lastly pat and wipe the area of the breakage with a damp piece of paper towel or a disposable wet wipe
5. Put both the tape and wet towel into the plastic bag or jar and follow the disposal instructions below, just make sure the bag or jar is sealed tightly

If broken on a carpet…

1. Go through steps 2 & 3 listed above
2. On a carpet, you can use a vacuum to get the little pieces you may have missed
3. But after vacuuming, make sure you remove the vacuum bag or empty and wipe down the canister, and dispose of the bag or canister contents into the plastic bag or jar

And lastly, DO NOT USE YOUR HANDS! Last time I checked, cutting your fingers on broken glass isn’t too much fun…

Now, I’m going to touch on how to dispose of your burnt out CFLs. If you have a CFL that has served its time and no longer works, you’re probably going to toss it into the garbage. But DON’T! They will inevitably be broken at some point in their disposal process and even though a singular bulb contains a minimal amount of mercury, 5 milligrams of mercury is enough to contaminate 6000 gallons of water!

So we must RECYCLE our burnt out CFLs. Most municipalities will gladly take them for you, as they have special recovery programs in place for the disposal of batteries, paint, computers and other products that contain hazardous materials as well. And as an added convenience, all Home Depot, RONA and IKEA stores are happy to recycle your burnt out bulbs for you too. Also, talk to your municipalities about the proper disposal of your broken bulbs.

Now I’m pretty sure that I’ve given you enough information about CFLs that you’d probably feel comfortable writing a book about them! But let’s say you want to find out more about the science behind a CFL, check out this link:

http://everykilowattcounts.ca/tools-and-tips/res/How-Do-CFLs-Work.pdf

And there we have it! You now know everything there is to know about CFLs! If you have any questions or concerns though, please feel free to email us at info@greenertogether.ca and we’ll make sure to fill you in on whatever it is you need to know!