10 Steps to Dispose of a Broken Light Bulb

John Hawk should shut up. More ridiculous scaremongering. There's no reason whatsoever to make a fuss about a few people with light sensitive skin. What's next? Cautioning the use of solar panels because people are allergic to electricity?

If they are the steps to removing and disposing of a light bulb, may I ask the question how many people does it take to fit a light bulb?

I find it strange that low energy lighting has been used for 30 years in our schools hospitals and other public places and only now are negative comments starting to surface, could this be a media manipulation .I would realy appreicate a case study where someone has contracted cancer from a low presure mercury light fitting. They have been in use for 45 years ,if they where so toxic surely our hospitals would be full of cases by now just like aspestos,yet i have not been able to find one such case,?

This is for shattered lightbulbs, not simply broken (as in nonfunctional, burned out). How many actual shattered regular lightbulbs have you had to deal with? Possibly 1 or 2?

Dealing with normal shattered bulbs is somewhat dangerous anyway, maybe not chemically but you need to dispose of a lot of glass that can have gone quite far or be in a carpet etc...

CFLs are quite a lot stronger than incandescent bulbs, firstly the glass is thicker, and they are smaller thicker tubes giving them more structural stability not largish thin glass bubbles like incandescents

I remember finding a fluorescent tube thrown away way back in primary school and of course there was that crazy kid who had to smash it, it took quite a lot of punishment before it did shatter he tried kicking it a few times (wearing boots), in the end he had to pick it up and club it against some concrete (and even that took a few hits).

Chances are you will never encounter a CFL shattering, especially when you consider that LEDs will probably overtake them within a few years thanks to Haitz's Law

Mark, mercury poisoning is actually very difficult to detect. The symptoms are all pretty vague. It builds up in the brain, so it rarely shows up in bloodwork and the like. It's an underestimated problem, to be sure, but I very much doubt that a lightbulb or two will make a difference to anyone with a mouth full of mercury-aluminium fillings.

Use half a potato to get the fitting out and a wet rag to wipe up the shards. Stick them in a paper bag and - if you're lucky enough to have a place nearby - take them to the recycler.

Can I have 144 million pounds, please?

So much ridiculousness surrounding CFLs... The ten steps are nothing drastic at all. For the most part they're what you'd do with a broken incandescent.

As for mercury... it's important to be careful with it. It's more important not to be obsessive about it. By overstating the problem of mercury, envrionmentalists frequently feed anti-eco sentiments in the media. Mercury's been around us for years, just as fluorescent lighting has been. Ever broken a thermometer? Did you die/become mentally retarded as a result?

CFLs have become the favorite plaything of curmudeonly right-wing (and sometimes left-wing) columnists with more deadlines than ideas. I can't wait till we get back to a more reasonable attitude: be careful, not hysterical.

EbilPhish -

I hate to tell you, but when most people say "broken", they mean just that. Broken into itty bitty pieces. When they mean "no longer lighting up" they say "burned out." This could be just a usage local to me, but I've never seen evidence that anyone else uses "broken" to mean "nonfunctional" for a light bulb.

As to how often bulbs get actually broken, I think you have an excellent point. I don't remember it happening very often. My last broken bulb was a CF, and I broke it something like two weeks before I learned that I should do careful cleanup. Oops.

I do worry about burned-out bulbs getting broken in the trash, and it would have never occurred to me to do anything other than throw away a burned-out CF if it weren't for the news articles on Treehugger and other places. Now I know I shouldn't just dump my next dead one in the trash.

I don't see an easy middle path between "scaring people to death" and "being too casual about needing to properly dispose of the bulbs." I'm afraid that without the mercury warnings, people will treat CF disposal like aluminum recycling - something they should do, but don't.

Three cheers for Anonymous. This is much ado about a trivial risk.

Lets get a focus of our real mercury exposure: coal and natural gas burning. By using CFL's you reduce everyone's exposure to mercury by a significant factor.

Where do these people with the boxes and tape think that mercury in fish comes from? It is largely from atmospheric deposition containing trace amounts of mercury which originates from coal burning.

As for natural gas.,yes, it has mercury for that used in commercial burners, but emitted in orders of magnitude less concentration than from coal burning. (Domestic natural gas is generally scrubbed to remove mercury before distribution.)

The is a classic example of a politician either lacking a competent science advisory staff or ignoring them. I consider it particularly egregious that the original reporter did not offer some balance about where signifcant mercury exposures originate from.

Figures, I dropped a CFL on my floor and it shattered everywhere a while back. This was before everyone started talking safe cleanup, and I pretty much swept it up with. So I have to say I get a little bit angry every time I see one of these "safe cleanup" posts on blogs. What about everyone who's already cleaned one up "un" safely?! :(

While there is a theoretical risk to people with severe photosensitive skin diseases from the small amount of ultraviolet light emitted by CFLs, most people with eczema - a very common disease - have no such photosensitivity. People who are unable to tolerate any sunlight due to photosensitivity may be advised to avoid additional exposure to the small amount of ultraviolet light from CFLs, but this is only a subset of people with eczema and lupus.

As for the mercury content, the amount of mercury in a typical CFL is very small, only 4 to 5 milligrams, and newer bulbs have even less. This is almost one thousand times less than what used to be in mercury thermometers. While people certainly should avoid exposing themselves to the mercury from a CFL if it breaks, the exposure from a single broken bulb is comparable to the mercury in a few cans of tuna, and would not be expected to cause ill effects.

For more on this, see Environmental Defense's blog, Climate411: http://environmentaldefenseblogs.org/climate411/2008/02/06/cfls_parade/

They ought to regulate a safer bulb, IMO. If the gov wants these lights in use, they should be safe like any other product. Just give them a shatterproof sleeve or coating or something, like the tube-style (which I remember using as light sabers and smashing them into each other as a kid. Whoops.) That ought to eliminate the majority of accidents.

BTW, I love that I can bang my CFL shop light around and not have it burn out! A bonus side effect of switching from incandescent (not too hot either).

Hey, aren't we all going to get sick from Mercury contamination by eating fish which will lower our cholesterol, thus uhh, reducing our risk for illness and death.

Can the possible contamination from a stray broken CFL bulb (1 x year at MAX) really be worse than government's endoresement of servings of omega-3 fatty fish (3 x week)?

Its not just a few people with light sensitive skin. I had a severe reaction to statin drugs three years ago,and since then these lights are pure poison to me and induce seizures.
We have had to remove all of them from our house.