Ask TreeHugger: Is Mercury from a Broken CFL Dangerous?

Notorious junk-science "expert" Stephen Milloy recently wrote an egregiously dishonest article about exactly this topic. More at this link:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/05/compact_fluorescent_lights_are.php

The questioner (and anyone else) should consider LED for kids' rooms or any other areas of concern. They cost more but may be worth the trouble. An increasingly good range is available on the 'net.

But how do I dispose of a burnt out bulb?

Return it to the store you bought it from, or to county hazardous waste pickups. I think you can mail them to recyclers too.

http://www.lamprecycle.org/

I *think* Home Depot has drop off spots for CFL as well, I know they do for batteries.

IKEA takes back CFLs, as far as I know.

Does anyone know if Walmart will take them back to be recycled? Since they're trying to sell so many, they ought to. That might be the thing that would drag me into a Walmart store. I don't know of anyone else locally who does it.

I know that Philips produce CFL mercury free. It's true?

At least that's one issue resolved :) I remember a kid in my class a long time ago in second grade broke a tube fluorescent light in our classroom and quite a lot of panic ensued.

Use LEDs, period. If you need more light then do what you have to do during the day. Consider the health of your eyes, if you are subjecting your eyes to the brightness of CFLs or incadesent at night after a day of daylight, on top of looking at a tv or computer screen... tired eyes. Seems obsurd to even consider CFLs in the face of current LED technology. But, whatever, if you want to support the mercury mari-go-round, enjoy. Your money is a vote...

if mercury is such a big problem at 5mg in my bulb then why isn't 10 mg in my tooth a big problem? They say they mix other metals in the filling to somehow seal in the toxic part but really? If i wanted a chunk of mercury in my mouth i could go to the dentist and they would cap every tooth if i wanted. Speaking of which i just had a mercury filling removed by grinding it out, i had no air ventilator or anything, my heart beat eradically for the next 3 days.

my point? considering where mercury is being used (computers, fillings, thermometers) this is by far one of the least controversial uses.

Of course, the level of mercury in CFl bulbs (5-6 mg) is much lower than the amount in "standard" fluorescent bulbs (e.g., the long tubes that are probably in your kitchen and office), which contain ~20 mg each.

There's no safe level of mercury you can be exposed to, so everything's a risk, including filling your house full of CFL's.
Japan used to dump mercury waste from manufacturing into the ocean until japanese kids started being born deaf, dumb and blind from the poisoned fish their mothers consumed.
I for one would like to see CFL's go away permanently and be replaced with LED's. CFL light is still harsh and unpleasant.

My solution. Add skylights, or more windows and use triple pane glass.

Interesting point, thanks for bringing it up I heard IKEA is taking them out, so there has to be something about it.

Another thing to remember is that using a CFL instead of a standard incandescent produces 8mg less mercury at the power plant. Most bulbs will be disposed of properly, but even if every single one was smashed and the mercury released, the environment would still be better off.

What about the lady up in the northeast who dropped the lightbulb in a room while installing it and she had to pay over $2,000 in clean up for the mercury in the room? Yeah....11 years in order to recoup the cost of clean-up in terms of energy savings.

Last time I looked, 0.2mg/cubic meter is four times the EPA levelof 0.05mg/cubic meter...the 8-hour average seems to assume a lot of air movement in a typically small bedroom. used by a child.

Who keeps pushing LED for the home? Sounds like a shill! That technology is in it's infancy and in no way is a sustitute for incandesant or fluorescent.

CFL-s are great but they are full of things that are horrible once you throw them away. heavy metals and things we don't need in our landfills.
g.

I believe that it is
5mg mercury over the first hour reduces from 5mg to 0mg at one air change per hour.
so, the average amount over that first hour is 2.5mg and if the amount of mercury is zero over the final 7 hours then the average amount over 8 hours in a 25m3 room is 0.0125mg/m3/8hrs.
Yes / No ??

And for disposal, your community should have resources to ask to find out where you can go to dispose of mercury waste.

Professor Suh ought to check her numbers if she thinks 0.20 mg/m3 is less than .05 mg/m3. When I went to school, two tenths was quite a bit more than five one hundredths, about 4 times greater in fact. If it is not obvious try 200 thousandths compared to fifty thousandths.

Professor Suh MacIntosh Note: I see now that I should have explained my reasoning and math further in the original post. While it is true that 0.20 mg/m3 is less than .05 mg/m3, it is also true that you can not compare these amounts without accounting for the amount of time you would be exposed. The OSHA standard says that you need to be exposed to this amount (on average) for 8 hours. As a result, you need to average the 0.20 mg/m3 amount over an 8 hour period. Since one can assume under typical conditions that the air in the room would be copmletely replaced in one hour (after which the mercury concentrations would drop to zero), then the 8 hour averaged concentration is calculated as 0.20 mg/m3 divided by 8 hours. This amount is 0.025 mg/m3 for an 8 hour average. Clearly, less than the 0.05 mg/m3. I have amended the post to step through the math in a more deliberate fashion.

Some of the people making comments should read the whole story. The 0.2mg/m3 is an initial value after the bulb breaks. The 0.05mg/m3 is the maximum value per OSHA standards over an 8 hour period of time. The air in a room typically changes out every hour (and no this is not an overestimate, especially if you have the air conditioning or heat running, or even a simple fan.) So the actual exposure is less then the OSHA requirements.

I can't believe anyone would believe they have to pay over $1000 for a mercury cleanup. Mercury is a metal which means all one has to do is get a mercury sponge which is also metal, and it will absorb most is not all mercury. A paper towel as suggested in the article will not pick up mercury. It is simple chemistry. Think!

"Mercury is a metal which means all one has to do is get a mercury sponge which is also metal, and it will absorb most is not all mercury. "

Umm, WT*F*?

Sorry Pimby, but the argument of averages does not cut it.
At an initial concentration of 0.2 mg/m3, a straight line average means you would not get down to the OHSA standard for 45 minutes. That means that anybody in the room during that 45 minute time period gets up to 4 times the OSHA safety threshold in mercury fumes, from the time the lamp breaks, assuming that in fact the air is entirely exhausted after that first hour.If you accept the human lung capacity of 2 liters or 2000 cc, you breath in something close to 0.1 m3 every minute, which ingests about .02 mg of mercury that first minute and declines from there. You want us to believe that small doses of mercury are not harmful? I don't think so. That is why OSHA regulates the exposure levels.

Just go to www.earth911.org to find out how to recycle.

Professor Suh MacIntosh has made a couple of key errors in her analysis.

The OSHA PEL for mercury vapor is 0.1mg/m3, not 0.05mg/m3. The latter is the NIOSH REL and it applies to skin contact only. You can look these values up at www.osha.gov, or check out the NIOSH pocket guide online. I'm surprised that a Professor of Environmental Health would make that mistake.

Now then, take an average room at 10'x10'x8', which comes out to 21.6m3. Assuming the 5 mg of mercury all vaporizes, giving an initial concentration of 0.23mg/m3. This is roughly twice the OSHA PEL for Hg, and working in this area would require respiratory protection.

Her second error is to assume that the contaminate in the room would be replaced with a single air change. This assumption is completely false. Standard environmental calculations assume that mixing occurs during the air exchange and the rule of thumb in the field is that one complete air exchange only reduces the contaminate by 50%. Again, I'm surprised that a Professor of Environmental Health would make that mistake. In the real world, starting with .23mg/m3 of Hg vapor, after one air exchange, we would expect to see 0.12mg/m3 Hg vapor. After the next exchange, we would expect to see 0.06mg/m3 and so on. Basically, a person in this room would be breathing air in excess of the OSHA PEL for about 1.5 hours.

The professor's scenario is flawed in another way, assuming that all of the Hg will vaporize immediately. She may have made this assumption thinking that it would lead to the worst case scenario, but it doesn't. Let's take a more realistic case, one where only half the metallic Hg goes airborne each hour. The first hour, 2.5 mg would go airborne. The next hour, 1.25 mg go airborne, the third hour, 0.6 mg go airborne, and so on. In this more likely scenario, and using the 50% dilution per air change, Hg exposure will exceed the PEL for almost 3 hours, or twice as long as her test case.

Finally, while the OSHA PEL is a TWA (Time weighted average) that doesn't mean you can exceed the limit for a short period of time. As an analogy, you can't drive 100mph in a 55mph zone and use the excuse that you were only going to be out for 15 minutes. Doses above the PEL result in a higher concentration of Hg in the body, leading to more damage, regardless of the duration of the exposure. There hasn't been enough study on the effects of short term exposures to determine non occupational exposure limits, which is why environmental scientists routinely defer to OSHA PELs or NIOSH/ACGIH RELs in assessing exposure for members of the public.

So, what's the bottom line? CFLs result in energy savings, but do require special handling for disposal, and do represent a slightly increased health risk, particularly to young children and pregnant mothers. The magnitude of that increase is very small, much smaller than risks we take for granted every day, like driving to the supermarket for example, but it does exist.

Very interested in putting CFL's in the home and think risk to be easily managed. However, every note on the topic says not to use a vacuum for clean up. What's the best clean up method for a carpet?

I have used my vaccum to clean one up. Do I need to get rid of my vaccum. I am so confused about all this? Help!

Someone has to say it: spending $2,000 to get your house cleaned after dropping a CFL is someone with too much money and too little brain, and a cleaning company recognising an opportunity too good to pass. (I don't deny that the home-owner probably had a genuine concern for their family's health). In some supposedly civilised Western countries (e.g. UK), that's standard business practice.

Now I remember playing with globs of liquid mercury with my friends back in primary school in the late 70s - rolling it in my hands, fascinated with its behaviour. And working with asbestos fencing while fixing up my grandfather's house, painting the building with lead paint, and painting outdoors wood with creosote, and so on. Along with the housecleaning product myth that your house is "full" of typhoid/HIV/SARS/CJD/TLA (and so need the latest/greatest super-strength cleaners), isn't all this simply profit-motivated scare-mongering and obsessive fascination because we actually have nothing important to worry about?

I've done all of the super-lethal, gonna-die-now-if-you-even-think-about-it stuff listed above, and more. If it's all so terribly bad, why am I a healthy 35 year-old and not yet pushing up daisies?

Some thoughts:

In CFL vs incandescent discussions (why there should be one puzzles me) I have never seen anyone talk about the injection of elemental tungsten into the environment. via incandescent lamp disposition. It must be millions of pounds. As I recall, elemental tungsten is in the same EPA (OSHA?) hazard category as elemental lead.

The analysis and several posts here assume that mercury evaporates rapidly. My experience is that it evaporates very slowly ... I'd even say imperceptibly. Sure it all evaporates eventually, but I doubt the presumed presumed aerial densities are a fraction of those calculated.

I have several pounds of mercury collected by my father from the ubiquitous 40w fluorescent tubes lamps. He broke them in a barrel and threw away the glass and in some years a significant amount a mercury accumulated at the bottom of the barrel. This leads me to wonder what the environmental mercury injection is from the millions of annually disposed commercial fluorescent lamps. At my business, they were routinely mixed with office trash.

As an aside, I mention that when I was 10 years old, for several years I alloyed mercury with lead/tin solder to make low temperature solders. In using this solder, I inhaled very large amounts of both lead and mercury vapors. While this is anecdotal, my having made it to 63 in good health leads me to worry that concerns about mercury are perhaps overblown.

The best advice I've seen is to open a window and allow the mercury to diffuse. Wear gloves and then use a stiff piece of paper to scoop up powder. After that you can use duck tape to pick up the small particles.

This site has more in depth instructions:
http://www.hoax-slayer.com/mercury-fluorescent-lights.shtml

Also please take a look at the definitive guide to hoaxes and urban legends.
http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/cfl.asp

I would recommend throwing away the bag from the vacuum.

My son broke one of these things in his room months ago and we 'cleaned' it up like any other light bulb, not realizing these things were dangerous! We vacuumed and our vacum is bagless. We have since vacuumed the house many times and the children have played in the room, on the rug where the bulb broke! This is infuriating. I would NEVER have used something like this in his room if I had been aware of the danger. Are the toys and books in his room also contaminated? What should we do?

Have you ever stopped to consider how mercury is made?
Dissipation into the air and the air is moved away: Where? Into another dimension? So if CO2 can be dissipated into the air and cause global warming, why can't mercury being dissipated into the air have environmental consequences?
Coal burning furnaces sans scrubbers or not and wherever is wrong as well. So I gather that if the level is small enough, then two wrongs don't make a right.
The world has enough crazy people , so why sweeten the pot by saying in effect: "A little bit of mercury helps make life better, if we use it in CFL and incandescents."
Saying it's OK to use it in CFLs because it is in very small quantities is ridiculous, have you no sense of responsibility. Have you ever heard of saturation points? No matter what the amount, producing more mercury in Spain and Italy, where 50% of the world's supply comes from, serves no real useful purpose for the environment. Then one has to consider the increased labour and millions of units of BTUs required to produce this poison as well. I'm afraid that saying it dissipates into the air is doing the ostrich thing.

Mercury vapor and salts of Mercury are poisonous--Never INHALE or SWALLOW Mercury! In fact, don't ever leave Mercury exposed in an open container at room temperature--it will slowly evaporate placing a toxic gas into the atmosphere. Mercury can be absorbed through the respiratory and gastrointestinal systems and even through unbroken skin, further, it is a cumulative poison. It doesn't easily flush out and levels can accumulate over time until it becomes toxic and deadly.

Give it a second thought.

I assume that being from Harvard this is supposed to be treated as The Gospel Truth. Do you realize how many erroneous things that have come out of Harvard? This being one of them!
Standing on the shoulders of ignorance that has come before thee is no brass ring.

Don't live in fear. The use of CFLs has a net positive effect on the environment. The single largest source of mercury in the environment is coal-fired power plants. http://www.epa.gov/ttn/oarpg/t3/fact_sheets/fs_util.pdf
Using a CFL in place of an incandescent light prevents more mercury from entering the atmosphere than the amount of mercury in the bulb, and if the bulb is recycled the mercury is captured. Not to mention the other emissions avoided from reduced power use.
Don't live in fear.

In response to the lady who's son had broken a cfl months ago and they "cleaned" it up as any ordinary light bulb. My husband has broken at least a dozen of these bulbs throughout our house (since he thought it best to replace ALL our fixtures). He wasn't aware of mercury and I have since made him aware. I have done extensive research on mercury in CFL's and still feel they're safe (in spite of the breakage issue) since the mercury eventually dissipates. We can't fear mercury in the air since it's already there anyway (power plant emissions for example) but we can try to be more efficient so we put LESS emissions into our air. Cfl's are a good step until LED's catch up.

First of all, cudos to all who have entered into this discussion. The level of discourse here is fantastic.

No one has addressed the relative dangers of living with fluroescent lighting, due to its limited spectrum of light.

Many of us are working in artificial light eight hours a day. We commute to and from work in the dark. As Americans are increasingly sedentary, we spend far too much of our time indoors (particularly in the northern climates, where it is freezing cold six months out of the year and people essentially live indoors during those months}.

So, though it may be slightly off topic, any discussion of the relative pros and cons of fluorescents vs. incandescents vs. LED's (which also provide full-spectrum light, as do incandescents) is essential. In the absence of full-spectrum light a host of pernicious illnesses are likely to crop up, not the least of which is cancer.

Additionally, it is my understanding that LED's are rapidly catching up in terms of their reesidential lighting applications and currently there are a couple of sites that offer them. They last even longer and use even less energy, from what I understand.

This whole debate reminds me of the time when, about a hundred years ago, people bought light fixtures that were both gas and electrical; electricity was DC then and people's houses were burning down. Electricity was considered a dangerous fad that might soon pass. It looks to me as if these CFL things are a transitional technology, and it looks rather suspicious to me that companies like PG and E are unloading them on an unsuspecting public at prices that are subsidized far below their manufacturing cost.

There isn't even warnings on the packages! In my opinion this whole conversation about how much murcury is safe is crazy. Clearly, we need to transition to a cleaner technology, but CFL's don't seem to be the best response to the problem. I'm guessing that in a couple of years we'll all be clucking our tongues and shaking our heads and wondering how we could all have been so taken in. If this entire topic makes you uneasy, listen to your gut and avoid using CFL's. Lobby your local manufacturers and distributors to place warnings on the boxes.

Mercury vapour is heavier than air and consequently will not behave in the way described by your contributors. It will not dissipate in the same way as a gas which mixes evenly with air.
Ie. mercury vapour concentrations will remain high at the heaiht of a bed, for example. Dissipation will depend on room temperature as well as the positioning of a vent or open window.
If a vent is at floor level it will work best for mercury. But they're are usually higher up on a wall. Lethal levels can be reached in a small room with no ventilation and heating switched on.
There are lots of rooms like this, where a broken cfl could kill or maim, especially a child.
The safety levels quoted in this blog are for USA only and much higher, meaning much more dangerous, than in many othe countries, where the USA levels would be against the law.
Finally, tungsten, which is indeed an environmental hazard, does not evaporate at normal temperatures or combine easily to form compounds that can enter the food-chain. Its danger is miniscule compared to mercury.

Read all about one family's experience at greening their lives at

http://livinggreenlivingwell.com

enjoy!

jlw

This may sound like a silly question but how do you know when a bulb or tube is broke or leaking ? does it change colour slightly or emit other tell tale signs? the reason i ask.i had a dis used flourescent tube at the bottom of my bed for years left over from a fish tank, occasionally i'd kick out in my sleep,when i realised i took the tube out my yard to inspectfor a break.the tube seemed intact but the metal fittings either end were slightly loose(1 or 2 millimetre give). should i presume the tube safe? i havent bothered cleaning the area it was in,as its carpet and partly my bed, to be honest i've avoided sleeping there.i've since had a simlilar episode with a house bulb .my motor bike helmet dropped near(or maybe on) a used bulb in my cuboard the bulb seemed intact so i left it there. now i 'm a bit paranoid to touch that one lol ,i did inspect it for any damage using gloves and put the housebulb back in my cuboard, then washed the gloves in the shower now i'm worried i've contaminated my shower with minute particles of that white powdery s tuff in the bulbs while washing my gloves lol ,i didnt see any leakage from either bulb but i'm still worried about small amounts leaking ,and as i dont know exactly how poisonous this substance im unsure of what to do ,doesthe mercury evaporate completely,does the white powder hang around,if so how dangerous is that ? its a bit concerning when you have a young child crawling every where.anyone have advice?

this may seem like a silly question but can anyone tell me how to tell if a bulb is broken or fractured without pluging it in? ,does it appear different ? my reason for asking is i had a flourescent tube at the bottom of my bed for years and occasionally kicked it in my sleep, on discovering the dangers i took it out ,on inspection it seemed intact but the metal fittings on either end were a bit loose when twisting them(1-2 milimetre give)this was 5 months ago, now i'm thinking of it every time i'm in bed lol,if the bulb leaked slightly would any of that white powder still be there or does it all evaporate ? . i had a similar scenario with an energy saving light bulb.a motorbike helmet fell near a used bulb ,i wasnt sure if it made contact,but it looked intact.the bulb remains where it is in my bedroom in an ice box,not sealed but close to it.am i at risk it's starting to worry me more and more,after inspecting the energy saving bulb i washed my hands in the shower would that area contain any residue.i've no idea about this substance or how it behaves,maybe i'm going over the top with this worry but i have kids at the age where they crawl everywhere.my last question is.how dangerous is the amount of mercury in a bulb,what whould happen if a human ate it ?

no waht a lie i buyed a eco light bulb for $800000 dollars it said it will never brakes and never uses light but i buyed and it broke in its frist day!!!! i lost $800000 in one day!!!!!

I do this lightign thing all day, every day, and I've been at it 15 years ... and i have two engineering degrees in lighting.

LED is a CRAP solution at this point. Someday they will get there, but you can't simply just swap some sort of LED thing into a hole in the ceiling and expect the same amount of light. They still haven't conquered the heat issues, so you end up with AT BEST half the light of a CFL.

LED is only valid at this point if you have an installation where it is all but impossible to replace the lamps and then the 50,000 hours of life you MIGHT get helps the situation.

You will EASILY pay $100 for half the light you have now.

As far as "tired eyes" goes, you need to read some actual lighting and vision research before you spout off on that subject. That is more crap than LED for residential use.You think the human visual system hasn't evolved during the use of fire after the Sun goes down? Huh? Dude, think before you spout.

I do agreee that the REAL solution is to just not have so many damn lights on all over the place.

Any one of these environmental issues (car mileage, CFLs, greenhouses gases, however you want ot focus or slice it) is solved by stopping your outrageous gluttony instead of coming up with a more efficient way of being disgustingly wasteful. If you didn't buy so much crap would you need ot worry about how to recycle it all? Nope!

I thought I'd share my recent experience with a broken CFL. Two days ago I dropped a 75-watt-equivalent CLF in the hall, on a wood floor, right at the doorway to my 4-year-old son's bedroom. Realizing I should probably take some extra precautions, I went online to find out how to clean it up.

I followed the standard advice: opened windows to vent the area for around 30 minutes, then picked up the pieces of broken bulb with gloved hands and with sticky tape. I then wiped the area down several times with a paper towel wetted with Method window cleaning spray (which is, incidentally, a great cleaner for hardwood floors).

But then I did some more research on the net. I found a study by the Maine Dept of Environment which suggested that even after clean-up, a broken CLF could leave long-lasting contamination. Even on hard, easy-to-clean surfaces such as wood floors. (see http://www.maine.gov/dep/rwm/homeowner/cflreport.htm)

I kind of freaked out. So I called the Ohio EPA and their response was immediate and reassuring. They told me they really didn't think the amount of mercury in a modern CFL would be a problem, and said they'd investigated a few such incidents and found no problems. But the reponse team leader said that as a father, he'd understand if I wanted them to come out and test my house.

They just left. They found zero traces of mercury vapor at the breakage site, or at any adjoining areas. And the wood floor where I broke the bulb is old, with some large gaps between boards. We could even see a few shards of broken bulb in those gaps, and he tested directly over them. No mercury.

I hope this reassures people who are concerned about this issue.

Firstly, in a building with a perfect forced air system the air in a room is exchanged each hour. This is not a standard or reasonable assumption in a house, only in a modern office building. If this was occurring at even half the assumed rate you'd suddenly be getting the maximum allowable dose. Now, I don't know about mercury, but I do know that for radiation, maximum allowable doses are based on an incidence of cancer of 1:1000. I'm suspecting mercury will be based on approximately the same calculation. The university I worked in wouldn't let us get within 1/100th of the regulation amounts.

Second, these calculations are all about what happens in the entire room after the gas dissipates. What happens when the bulb breaks right next to you as you are handling it (most likely in my experience). You instantly get a much higher dose is the answer.

Firstly, in a building with a perfect forced air system the air in a room is exchanged each hour. This is not a standard or reasonable assumption in a house, only in a modern office building. If this was occurring at even half the assumed rate you'd suddenly be getting the maximum allowable dose. Now, I don't know about mercury, but I do know that for radiation, maximum allowable doses are based on an incidence of cancer of 1:1000. I'm suspecting mercury will be based on approximately the same calculation. The university I worked in wouldn't let us get within 1/100th of the regulation amounts.

Second, these calculations are all about what happens in the entire room after the gas dissipates. What happens when the bulb breaks right next to you as you are handling it (most likely in my experience). You instantly get a much higher dose is the answer.

OK--we can take the busted light back to the store then?

That's problem numero Uno.

Second, there are no instructions on the bulb packaging for what to do IF you break one. So what is the best option? Call an agency? Clean it up with gloves?

And the nearest recycling center is in Spartanburg SC---100 miles from my location in Columbia SC. How much carbon emission will I save then while driving to dispose of the bulb? Not to be facetious. Now then-- I can just take them back to Home Depot?

Good.

Whatever else is the case, this is a lot of trouble over bulbs. Better be some savings here.

I know some major companies use Waste Management to recycle their waste, specifically flourescents.
They also provide a home service. i believe its called lamptracker. i dont know if its two words or one. im sure if you search for it you will find it.
Best of luck!

What happens to the mercury if it was not cleaned up properly, and was walked over by people and pets with long fur? Is mercury from the CFLs something that could get tracked all over the place, or does it eventually evaporate or dissipate over time? And what do we do with the vacumn which was used to clean the area up is a bagless one? I am very concerned because there are elderly people, a baby, 5 cats, and 2 dogs who are not very conscientious about where things could get tracked. PLEASE HELP!

Just broke one on my kitchen floor yesterday. It fell out of the package as I was trying to open that plastic that is virtually impossible to open. That was $5 wasted. I swept up the glass with a broom and wiped the floor with a wet paper towel. Is that enough? Should I be concerned for my health? I was just angry that the packaging was so heavy I could not get it open and oce I did, it flew out onto the ground. I opend all of the other packages over the mattress to keep them from breaking if they happened to fly out the same way.

Don't run your central air (HVAC) to clear the room - it will just spread the mercury vapors throughout your house. Open windows quickly and get out of the room (close the door if there is one) and turn OFF the central air... then after some time you can add a fan to the room to help clear it out. But defnitely turn off the air conditioner or central fan....

And the fact that it's a small amout of Mercury and the power plants emit more etc etc. don't impress me much. First off, I don't live next door to or downwind from a power plant. Second, a little precaution goes a long way... my dad died of cancer caused by asbestos exposure which really has piqued my awareness and perhaps paranoia... In any case, I don't want to take any chances with my family.

This is just additional infomation on CFLs:
For Info on all source of mercury, Visit Http://www.epa.gov/mercury and for info. about compact flourescent bulbs, vist http://www.energystar.gov/CFLS

To minimize the danger from mercury, spread powdered sulfur in the area. Sweep it into the cracks and corners. Mercury combines with sulfur forming mercuric sulfide. This is a stable and non soluble form of mercury, known in nature as cinnabar. Sweep the sulfur back up after some days, but leave it in the cracks and crevices and corners for lasting mercury absorption. Agricultural powdered sulfur will work quite well.

A further way to decrease mercury exposure is to use low mercury compact fluorescent light bulbs like the ones from Earthmate.

Here is an article about Earthmate Low Mercury CFL Bulbs.

I understand CFLs use less energy to produce their light, and incandescents give off a lot of heat, making them "inefficient." But if I am trying to heat my house anyway, what's the harm in continued use of incandescents? I am just transferring that CO2 consumption to somewhere else right? My hot water heater.

A 48 in. thin fluorescent tube (Westinghouse F32T8/74) broke while I was removing it from the fixture. I didn't know I had broken it until I realized that blackened end of the tube had not come out of holder. I found and removed the broken end of the tube and discovered that it had a small (1 mm) hole in it with melted edges. right where the tube cracked. I don't know how long the hole has been there, because there are 4 tubes in the fixture. The light has been gradually getting dimmer until it went completely dark two days ago. It was a clean break so no glass shards or dust. Anything I should do? Thanks. Helen

Regarding Mercury vapor. first, the bulbs contain MERCURY VAPOR, not liquid mercury. thus a broken bulb releases inhalable vapor. it is this excited vapor which produces the UV light which is phosphor-reradiated as visible light. if a child breaks a bulb, the child is right there. kids look at broken things, inhaling as they do so. second: this is a mass effect, all the incandescents in the country are to be changed out. third: foriegn (spy?) electronics in base. cf utility isp.

I would be greatly appreciated if someone can offer me advise to this question about a broken CFL. Last night, my hubby broke a CFL. He cleaned it up like he would with any other bulb by vacuuming (he has since changed the Hepa bags and filters in the vacuum). The clothes which got in touched with the broken glass shards from the CFL were thrown into the wash.

My question is should I be concern about the contamination to my washing machine? He said he found and removed another piece of glass shard from the clothes in the washer before turning it on. I have since cleaned the interior of the washer with a soapy sponge and an extra rinse.

If the mercury in the CFL are vapors, will cleaning it with soap, extra rinse and airing the washer be sufficient?

Or will the mercury sticks to the metal in the washer and keep releasing vapors?

Any thoughts are appreciated.

They may TELL you that it won't harm you, but PLEASE don't believe them. It is up to you to protect your family and keep them safe. They are trying to save the environment, by using these bulbs, but society is not prepared for them. They don't know that you have to use a special method of clean-up, and I wouldn't take any chances. I have lived with mercury poisoning from the fillings in my teeth (which by the way they will tell you that's not true, either). Many mornings I woke up sobbing and my husband would ask me why, and I told him it was because I "woke up"...I was still alive. I was sure that I would die in my sleep. That's how sick I was.

Mercury accumulates in the body. For those of you that say you've done all this such and such, and you're still ok, let me tell you, you're not. Eventually, it will all catch up with you. One day your body will reach the "FULL" mark, and it will start shutting down, and you will be sorry. So, you're getting a little forgetful? Ah, it's just getting older. Getting headaches a little more often? Must be stress. Aching muscles? Must be walking, sitting, standing too much...must be the new shoes...I could go on and on. They are subtle little problems that sneak up on you, but when you have all of them at once, you finally realize this must not be a coincidence.

Mercury NEVER goes away. It does not dissipate. It can and has been found years later in homes. It must be removed professionally, and no matter what they say, I wouldn't trust it unless it was. I am an environmentalist, but I would rather have it OUTSIDE in the atmosphere than in my living room carpet with my small children sticking their fingers in their mouths. The coal plants are still burning, the CFL's are still breaking in our homes, and the unsuspecting consumer is still dumping them in the trash, where they're going to the landfill, TOO!!!! Looks like we're getting poisoned from all directions now.

Please, I beg you, open your eyes...you will live longer. Save the incandescent bulb, and don't put these poison ones in your homes. Just because the big, powerful and rich make all these decisions that are supposed to "benefit" us, it doesn't mean they are the right ones. Always remember, money matters most to them, and your health is a lot farther down their list.

Bless you all, and stay safe

Debbie. If you have a bagless vaccum you need to take out the container and wipe it down with a paper towel several times, then maybe a slightly damp one. Washing clothes after they have been exposed is a bad idea.. it can contaminate your washer and dryer. You may want to call your local health department to see what suggestions they can give you about this. My husband just dropped one of these bulbs in our kitchen. I made him strip naked and throw his clothes away in a bag to dispose of them. It fell on his feet and went all over him, then before I could say anything he started picking up the pieces with no gloves, and the glass has cut his feet up. Im really worried. It took me a few mintutes to look up what I should do online, and I worry about our 8 month old baby who was in the room next to our kitchen. You can only do what you can do.. but I would definatly call and see what they suggest. Im wondering if I should do the same. I freaked out.. I just dont think its worth it. The light bugs my eyes anyway.

it will just spread the mercury vapors throughout your house. Open windows quickly and get out of the room (close the door if there is one) and turn OFF the central air... then after some time you can add a fan to the room to help clear it out. But defnitely turn off the air conditioner or central fan...

Emmy winning actor Jeremy Piven of Broadway play, "Speed the Plow," by David Mamet had to leave the production due to a high mercury count in his system. The director has called the ailment, which can actually turn deadly, bogus, despite orders from a doctor to stop working and seek treatment immediately. Jeremy experienced mercury poisoning after eating too much sushi. He is an avid sushi eater, regularly eating sushi twice a day. Mercury, though almost always present in trace levels in the human body, is a very toxic element and it has deadly side effects from exposure to even small amounts. If you want to find out what would cause Jeremy Piven to turn down so much extra cash, check out this article.

The 2.5e-5 mols of Hg will likely vaporize on impact, requiring only 0.4 calories of energy to reach the boiling point and evaporate. Why do you treat the Hg cloud as though it will immediately assume the full volume of the chamber? It will initially be concentrated over the impact point, i.e., precisely in the location of the person who dropped it. An initial cloud size of 1x1x2 meters gives a concentration of 2.5mg/m^3. The IDLH - immediately dangerous to life and health - limit is 10mg/m^3, so it is very feasible that you could hit a quarter of that limit.

Do not forget that the OSHA limits - the PEL, STLV, IDLH - are for adults; children are much more susceptible to Hg.

http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/pel88/7439-97.html

Regards, ChemEng.

the Compact Fluorescent Light Bulb are so dangerouse they are going to be against the law by 2012

Aren't the mercury vapors, when heated inside the bulb what make the light? If so then why would there be vapors leaking OUT? That wouldn't make sense would it?

My boyfriend got mercury poisoning from cleaning up one of these broken bulbs. He wasn't aware that they were dangerous at the time. It was only after he was sick for a long time, tested in several ways, was diagnosed with liver cancer by two different doctors, sought multiple second-opinions, that it was finally determined that he had mercury poisoning and the cause of it was the energy-saving light bulb that had broken in his garage (installed by his landlord) that he'd cleaned up several months earlier.

If you have one break, call professionals to clean it up.