South Africa To Phase Out Incandescent Bulbs
by Justin Thomas, Virginia 
on 06. 6.06
South Africa has plans to phase out certain types of incandescent bulbs and replace them with more efficient compact fluorescent bulbs. Malebo Mahape, a spokeperson for the Minerals and Energy Department, said the project would first be looking to phase out more readily replaceable bulbs like the 60 watt and 100 watt incandescent bulbs currently widely used in South Africa. “It will not be possible to phase out all kinds of incandescent or halogen type bulbs until readily available alternative fluorescent ones are on the market,” Mahape said. She said the department of trade and industry had been approached to start drafting regulations to prohibit the import of certain classes of bulbs.
Investigations would also need to be completed on types of bulbs, possible impact on local manufacturers and economic impact, created by the phasing out of incandescent bulbs. A fluorescent bulb, while more expensive than regular bulbs, lasts up to eight times as long and uses 80% less energy, saving the consumer on lighting bills and the replacement cost of bulbs.
:: Story via Hugg via The Herald Online. See also ::What About Mercury From Compact Fluorescents?
Follow @TreeHugger on Twitter & get our headlines with @TH_rss!
Thirsty for more? Check out these related articles:
- Clean Your Light Bulbs for 20% More Light
- Save Over $1,000 with These Six Green Tips
- Create a Go Green Plan: Follow Wa$ted!'s Salon Example
- Chipotle Goes Green, Plus Recipe for Hormone-Free Braised Pork with Chipotle Peppers
- Why Building Community is the Greenest Thing You Can Do
- Green Glossary: Bagasse
The compact fluorescent bulb is a double-edged sword. Nowhere in this article is it mentioned that they contain a significant quantity of highly toxic elemental mercury. That they are economical is beyond dispute, but if laws are to be introduced banning incandescent lamps, then there should be parallel laws regarding the safe disposal of old fluorescents.
---
Please see the link at the end of the post about mercury in CFLs.
Great! This is something that needs to be done worldwide to reduce greenhouse gases from all the old grandfathered thermal plants! For airconditioned rooms using CFLs the savings are even greater due to not having to deal with (cool down) the extra heat from incandescent bulbs.
Bravo South Africa, keep up the good work!
Although this sounds great and is a move in the right direction, there is a background here that has not been mentioned. The recent power failures due to "sabatoge" at Africa's only nuclear station (Koeberg) in Nov/Dec '05 brought Cape Town to its knees in blackouts. The province lost billions of rands and arguebly the ANC lost the metro elections in CT to the DA. First time since post-aparteid that the ANC has lost a seat in an election.
They are now scrambling to regain what they have lost. The reactor north of CT has been fixed (thanks France!) and power is ok, but everynight on tv you get the consuption level for the city saying to refrain from unnecesary usage otherwise rolling blackouts. One of the steps to reduce power is to switch people to gas stoves instead of electric. A fine idea to save limited power supply, but the cost of the gas is twice that of electric, pollution in homes increases and these are mostly people who struggle to meet daily needs in not so nice areas of town. So although I applaud SA's steps with the efficiency issue, it is really just to cover up for ANC mismanagement and neglect of many other issues.
I can write this because I sat in candle light in Dec, see the mismanagement of resources everyday in the country and walked home from university today in Cape Town, South Africa.
There is only minimal amount of mercury in these bulbs. Your watch battery has 5x as much mercury. Here is a table http://tinyurl.com/rp8hh
Also here is the epa factsheet on it: "While CFLs for your home are not legally considered hazardous waste
according to federal solid waste rules, it is still best for the environment to
dispose of your CFL properly upon burnout."
http://www.efi.org/articles/epafactsheet-cfl.pdf