Wal-Mart's Fluorescent Bulb Commitment On Track
by Mairi Beautyman, Berlin, Germany on 01. 2.07
In October, we filled you in on Wal-Mart’s push for compact fluorescent bulbs: The retail giant has the ambitious plan to slip them into at least 100 million homes, a plan now starting to look realistic. In today’s issue of The New York Times, we hear more about what this actually means. First, the green facts: A compact fluorescent, the article reports, uses 75 percent less electricity, lasts 10 times longer, produces 450 pounds fewer greenhouse gases from power plants and saves consumers $30 over the life of each bulb, despite a price tag eight times as expensive as a traditional bulb.
The cons: A harsher light and a strange spiral design, losses for big name-manufacturers such as General Electric and Osram Sylvania, decrease in American manufacturing jobs (the bulbs are made in Asia), and risk of mercury pollution. (In terms of the latter, Wal-Mart is exploring recycling.) Is Wal-Mart destined to become the new Interface? Just over a year after the company declared it would go green, and the tide is changing. ::The New York Times
Read more here: It's Getting Harder to Hate Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart is Going Organic
My question: Where are the LED lamps? Seriously. Forget the fluorescent, I want the LED lights that are promised. Even less energy usage, almost indestructible.
BTW, as far as the "lasts longer" go. I call BS on that one. I had more of those high priced ones stop working for me in the last year than "standard" light bulbs. In fact I had not to replace ANY of the traditional ones in the last two years, the oldest one is now six years old and still going strong.
It would be nice if they pushed LED bulbs too.
The goverment should point the way ,not the retail outlet,some countrys have banned the sale of normal bulbs and replaced them with compacts,i believe Cuba is one of them ,(and i was told no good could come from communism ).
Any way i have used these compacts for years they are great once you get use to their caractorisics and would never go back to fillerment.
They are getting better looking with globe effect as well as other designs.
But i think thier years will be short lived as the advance's in led efficiancy will light the way but in the mean time they are the best option.
"It would be nice if they pushed LED bulbs too."
I wouldn't be surprised if they did as soon as prices are a bit lower and the warm white ones have more production capacity behind them.
In fact, with their size, they could be the one who brings down the price of LED bulbs..
I just went to Ikea this weekend and they have these cool compact effecient lightbulbs as well. The one I bought was an 11watt bulb that had a frosted looking rubber outside. It looked like I could drop it without breaking anything - well at least without material getting shattered everywhere. Also the light emitted was much softer and easier to handle.
Ikea and Walmart are pushing the effeciency envelope for sure.
Amen to the "lasts longer" BS call by Michael. I replaced almost all of the bulbs in my house with these last year and have had several failures already. At least from my experience, they are NOT durable.
Also, they do not work well, if at all, in cold environments -- like my garage for instance. Sometimes they just won't turn on if they are too cold.
Still, they do save electricity, which is the broader goal.
The reason we haven't seen the LEDs yet is that everyone hasn't bought compact fluorescents yet. They will not start the replacement cycle until we've all bought the next thing!
"as far as the "lasts longer" go. I call BS on that one."
Michael, I'm very surprised by your comment. I consider the longer lasting attributes of CFs to be one of their biggest advantages.
After buying my house six years ago, I installed CFs in every single light socket, and I have replaced zero lightbulbs since then. The durability claims are accurate, as far as I have experienced.
Re: durability: There are probably wide quality ranges in manufacturing between brands that accounts for the varied experiences. They may also be very sensitive to power conditions (like, for example, frequent brown-outs, etc.).
The durability depends on the ballast and how clean your energy is in your house. Regular incandescents are much more forgiving of power fluctuations. And the ballasts are magnetic I'd guess...I've not opened one to look, but magnetic are cheaper...and less efficient.
I just saw an LED bulb in Walgreens last weekend. They've marketed it as a Party Bulb because it can change colors (or you can set it at white light). It's $9. I didn't buy it so I can't comment on how it works. Anyone else checked this out?
From walgreens.com:
Energy Costs - This bulb costs only $0.25 per year in energy when used an average of 12 hours per day
Here's the link to the bulb:
http://www.walgreens.com/store/product.jsp?id=prod2419626&CATID=303410&skuid=sku2419104&V=G&ec=frgl_595519
I agree with the "quality of electricity" comment. But it goes past that. It is really effected by the wiring in your house. If you have an old house and a CFL goes bad, you may not want to use that socket again for another CFL. You can try changing the switch. If the wiring is looses anywhere your CFL will go out prematurely.
Anyway this is like the upteenth time that WALMART is given credit for this. PLEASE STOP IT!!
WALMART CHARGES TOO MUCH FOR THIER CFL'S AND THEY SELL GE AND OTHER GARBAGE. Go to IKEA or HOME DEPOT or LOEWS ALL OF THESE PLACES CHARGE LESS FOR BETTER BULBS. GE is garbage.
I have GE they work fine. And Walmart is by far the cheapest I've seen.
How aimeable are these bulbs to recycling is what I am interested in.
Taking into account EU's WEEE directive...
UK DTI WEEE DIRECTIVE INFORMATION
EC Directive on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE)
The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE Directive) aims to minimise the impact of electrical and electronic goods on the environment, by increasing re-use and recycling and reducing the amount of WEEE going to landfill. It seeks to achieve this by making producers responsible for financing the collection, treatment, and recovery of waste electrical equipment, and by obliging distributors to allow consumers to return their waste equipment free of charge.
The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive was agreed on 13 February 2003, along with the related Directive on Restrictions of the use of certain Hazardous Substances in electrical and electronic equipment (RoHS).
The implementation of the WEEE Directive in the UK has been delayed. It was due to be transposed into Member State legislation by 13 August 2004 and come into force by 13 August 2005.
The UK Regulations implementing the WEEE Directive were laid before Parliament on 12 December 2006 and enter into force on 2 January 2007. Non-Statutory Guidance will be available in the new year.
Also see
I suspect that the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (enforced by the EPA) is also of importance here with regard to the issue within the USA. Regarding the recycling even of "high efficiency lamps" ... like those you discuss. If you type "Light bulb" AND "recycling" into any search engine and you'll find specialist companies who deal with this.
I, and I suspect everyone else is interested in future innovations on "the next round of ultra efficiency lamp" - that need to be even better again. Reducing further the "total cost of ownership"...
The WEEE isssue is discussed on the Philips site:
HERE
"Environmental awareness
Recycling - New legislation will come into force
The European Legislation on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) will come into force on August 13th 2005.
Basically, the directive calls for the collection for recycling of all lamp types and their associated luminaires and control gear, with the exception of incandescent, halogen and CFL-I lamps.
Collection and recycling will be the responsibility of producers and importers. The costs for collection and recycling will be met from a small premium on lamp cost. As a consequence, it will become even more beneficial for you to buy lifetime reliable products, because fewer are required over time, reducing Total Cost of Ownership.
The main objective of WEEE is to prevent electronic products ending up in waste dumps or incinerators. Additional environmental objectives are closing the product life cycle by means of recycling and creating greater environmental awareness on the part of all parties involved.
Philips long-life, reliable products are fully in line with WEEE, and many are upwards recyclable so that their components can be recovered and used to make new products of the same type."
I mention Philips since they are the ones I personally own *I AM IN NO WAY CONNECTED WITH THAT ORGANISATION*
I think Govenor Schwarzenegger's proposal to ban traditional bulbs in California is an easy way to deal with the consumer energy efficiency issue through legislation - but as I said what about recycling issues? I think looking at developments here in Europe - that some of these issues are already being dealt with - making it safe for the Governor to realistically consider it.
Lets hope these bulbs are as useful in "The War on Carbon" as we think they could be!
If not - we need to consider ways of making the things more environmentally friendly by design "tweaks".
Regards,
Mark
The Green Chemistry Technical Blog