Green Living San Francisco

CFL Swirl (HDR) by Haeretik on Flickr

I was excited to read Inman’s Going Green Boosts Bottom Line. I was happy about the information outlined in the post all the way until…. the last paragraph citing

research sometimes disproves our assumptions about what is best for the environment. For example, the U.S. is phasing out traditional light bulbs in favor of the new compact fluorescent bulbs. These new bulbs, however, contain mercury, which is highly toxic. If you break one, you need to clear the room for 15 minutes, remove it with rubber gloves, and discard it separately since the mercury can seriously pollute local drinking water. An article from the Boston Globe outlines the dangers, while new research from the United Kingdom warns of additional dangers, including triggering of epileptic seizures, eczema, and increased lupus symptoms.

While I agree with most of the green suggestions, however, the points on using the CFL is false and misleading.

It’s true that CFL contains very small amount of mercury, however, ask yourself this, would you rather have uncontrolled mercury floating in the air or contained and controlled mercury in a much lower dose in a light bulb?

CFL can reduce the amount of electricity generated and used. During the process of getting electricity into our plugs of our homes, large quantity of mercury is produced and emit into air. This is why electric power plants is one of the largest pollution source in the United States.

****Each year, the plants spew a total of 48 tons of mercury into the atmosphere– roughly a third of all human-generated mercury emissions.

Additionally, the mercury amount contained in a light bulb is so little that it is considered as harmless. EPA estimates this amount to be 4-5 milligrams (mg) in a typical CFL. It is not true that if you break a CFL bulb, you need to scrub the floors for 15 minutes.

So ask yourself this, would you rather deal with uncontrolled 48 tons of mercury pollution? Or controlled and contained 5 milligrams of mercury in your CFL light bulb???

This just goes to show why we still need a lot of education in green issues. You can start by a) changing out your light bulbs to CFLs and b) educate people why CFLs are not dangerous!

See original post here: Inman News: Going ‘green’ boosts bottom line

Also:

Ask TreeHugger: Is Mercury From A Borken CFL Dangerous?

Reducing Mercury Pollution from Electric Power Plant