Excerpt from StopGlobalWarming newsletter:
ACTION TIP: CFL RECYCLING
As you no doubt know, if every American home replaced just one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified compact fluorescent bulb (CFL), we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, more than $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars.But we need to recycle CFLs properly, as they contain a small amount of mercury. IKEA, the world’s largest home furnishings retailer, understands the value of CFL lights, as well as the need for recycling them.
The company offers a simple solution: a ‘Free Take Back’ program offering recycle bins for CFLs in all IKEA stores. Just take your used CFLs to IKEA for proper disposal.
If you’d like more info on lamp disposal for your state, please go to lamprecycle.org to obtain more information.
For more information regarding mercury in CFLs, including proper disposal options and what to do if a bulb breaks, click here for the PDF report from Energystar.gov.
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Can I recycle regular light bulbs found in home lamps (e.g. 40 watt, etc., light bulbs)?
Thanks for the tip.
I wanted to be green and replaced all my incandescent light for fluorescent, but I am having doubts about being green because they tend to last way less than regular bulbs and cost much more. I have to replace about 6 compact fluorescent n about 2 years.
I think there is a false advertisement about the longevity of fluorescents. I am considering going back to the old reliable technology. Hopefully the extra energy will be compensated by savings in materials and mercury.
Hey, we found this here after a fast google search. Nice blog you got here! Keep it up!
eventhough I throw away a large amount of of my time on the internet having fun with games like zynga poker or farmville, I still like to put aside some spare time to scan a couple websites here and there and I am proud to report this recent contribution is in fact pretty good and a great deal more beneficial than 1 / 2 the other trash I read today , anyways i’m going to have fun with a couple of rounds of facebook poker
Incandescent light bulbs will soon be phased out because they waste a lot of energy.-*-
Reinel,
The production of regular incandescent bulbs actually releases significantly more mercury into the environment than if an equivalent number of CFL bulbs were just thrown away.
As for the longevity, make sure you’re buying U/L-rated bulbs (Underwriters Labs tests and certifies bulbs as having sufficient quality). Also, make sure you don’t use the CFL bulbs in fixtures with dimmer switches (they’ll blow out quickly) or in areas where you use the bulb for less than 15 minutes at a time (they need to heat up or else you’ll shorten their lifespan considerably).
I’ve replaced all of my bulbs w/ CFLs, and they’ve all lasted 4 years thus far.
Recycling is very very important in order to preserve mother earth.*’.
Hi, i am the owner of fuchsiadream.com .Thank’s for sharing this news.This is very helpful and informative material.Good post and keep it up friend.
we should always think about recycling our waste products to help the environment.-*-