Tuesday, 10 February 2009
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Rethinking CFL Light Bulbs -Maybe We're Not Ready...
by Mama Giraffe
So we were good little go-greeners and changed all the light bulbs in our house to the new CFL light bulbs. And now, I want to change them all back.
Yesterday, I went upstairs to change the baby's diaper and heard a big crash. No one cried, so I didn't think much of it (my kids are pretty rough). However, I came downstairs to see that they had knocked over a lamp and the CFL light bulb had smashed all over our wool rug.
A quick google search assured me that all I had to do to clean up was: get everyone out of the room, open the windows for 15 minutes, put the broken glass in a glass container with a lid, vacuum and then throw the vacuum bag away. For real? This is what we have to do now every time we break a light bulb?
With three kids under the age of 5, mercury filled glass light bulbs are just not something we are ready to use.
Do you use CFL light bulbs? Have you ever broken one before? How did you deal with the cleanup?
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About the Author
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- From: mamagiraffe
- Name: mamagiraffe
- About Me: I am the mother of a 4 year old girl (Giraffe1) a 3 year old boy (Giraffe2) and a 6 month old baby boy (Giraffe3). I absolutely love being home with my kids and watching them grow and change every single day. I work part-time from home which is very challenging, but perfect for our family's needs.
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Comments (27)
Wow, I wouldn't have even known that it'd require that to clean those up had I not read this post. I would have treated them like any other light bulb. Yikes. I haven't switched over to those bulbs yet, though. When I move out, on the other hand.. I might. Energy conservation would be dandy.
We don't, and that's exactly why. I know going green is important, but mercury isn't something I want around my family and my family's health means more. *shrugs* Just me, though.
We bought some and the first thing I did was break one! I read that you should not use a vacuum though. Mine was on the cement basement floor with no little ones around thankfully. Then just last week, one of them blew already! They are supposed to last 5 years and this one lasted at the most 4 months! Regular light bulbs last longer than that. Did you also know you have to be careful putting them in an enclosed globe type fixture like overhead in your hall or kitchen? I have heard they can explode and they also can not be used outdoors unless you are positive that the fixture is waterproof.
My husband wants to get rid of them all and stockpile the regular bulbs before our wonderful government outlaws them.
really? i had no idea!
@sugartomyhoney@xanga - LOL Your husband's got a great idea!
You know, I don't quite get it. Everyone is all of a sudden up in arms over mercury in lightbulbs but for decades it was in our vaccines and to this day the government and parents with healthy kids swear it was all harmless.
So we don't want it in our lightbulbs but it was fine to inject it straight into our newborn babies? Yeah, still don't get it.
are you really complaining? That is NOT a lot of work at all and it sounds pretty silly that you're blowing up opening the windows and vacuuming into a big thing. I understand being scared about your kids and the mercury, but really, my house has a lot of those light bulbs and they've never exploded, just think of it as something that almost never happens and move on. One bulb exploding shouldn't be something for you to freak out about.
I've never broken one before, but I vaccuum when I break a regular bulb. It's not that big of a deal. I don't like the light they give out so I don't use them.
Yes, because the dangers of mercury from breaking a fluorescent and not taking the extra two steps in cleaning it up vastly outweigh the dangers in the tons of mercury emitted from power plants into the atmosphere where it's future flow is completely out of our control.
I like cfls but I hate the candlebra or whatever they are ones. They have a smaller bulb and I guess they are supposed to be more efficient, but it takes them time to "warm up" and actually give out a decent light. That to me is a waste of energy, but you can't find new ceiling fans that fit any other kind of bulb.
I hope we don't completely get rid of the regular light bulbs... I feel like they don't really make lighting feel very homey and make me look kind of sickly... (at least they enhance my sickly features... lol)
We use them but I only recently learned the mercury dangers. I think it's ironic that they are supposed to be better for the environment but you can't throw them away because they will harm the environment...what?!
We got them to help with energy bills and we have always had low bills. Then again, we are usually conservative anyway.
The light they give off can be an issue. The first time we bought some my husband wanted the ones that give off the white/blue light as opposed to yellow light. We put them in our living room fixture and it was like we were trying to guide planes! We decided to only use them outside after that. I do like that they shed a lot of light outside--they are great for security lights. The yellow ones can take a while to 'warm up' but not all of ours are that way.
I don't know if we'll buy them again...but I don't know when we'll have to! We have had some of ours for 2 1/2 years and we haven't replaced any yet.
@thinkin_up_dreams@xanga - If you notice, she didn't say that the light bulb exploded, her kids had knocked over a lamp and it broke. To fix this problem she either has to tighten up a lot on discipline so that the kids can't run around or she has to move/get rid of all lamps that an active kid could knock over and break. Or she could just not use mercury-filled light bulbs, which seems the most sensible choice with three young kids who like to play.
We don't use too many of them because I don't like the light they produce. But I didn't know the clean-up was so much work. That's crazy!
@ojingo@xanga - yea I noticed it afterwords that she said it got knocked down and not exploded. Even then, I really don't see it as such a big deal. As long as they aren't breaking a bulb a week (then Id prolly go with the discipline problem) I dont see a big deal about buying them.
I am supposing we use the energy-saving ones, which I am guessing is the ones you are talking about. We just have the energy saving ones in the rooms we have the lightson the most (living room, dining room, and kitchen) -- the rest of the house is just regular light bulbs. We don't have any lamps, so we don't have to worry with knocking them over and breaking them. I haven't yet broken one, but I would have never thought to clean it up that way... I would have just picked up the broken glass, vacuum, and never taken a second glance. Hrmph. Thanks for letting me know this!
In my old house (that had old wiring...50 year old wiring) the bulbs kept exploding (literally, blowing up)! Finally we called an electrician...and the new bulbs can't handle old wiring, and to use them we would have had to rewire the whole house (probably a good idea, but it wasn't our house and not our decision as renters)! And, the regular light bulbs? Companies have announced they will stop making them, and people are just suppose to switch to the new mercury ones (and to the poster commenting about mercury in vaccines, I am up in arms about that and we don't vaccinate, and also got rid of the mercury thermostat in our home)
we use them in all our light fixtures that aren't too small. when we first started using them back in our old apartment they literally cut our electric bill in half. we've been using them now for about six years and have only had to replace about half of them so far. i swear by those light bulbs! i've never had one break on me though, and didn't know about opening a window and stuff if one breaks. so i'm glad you posted this. it doesn't alarm me too much. we only use two lamps at home and even if one got knocked over, the bulb wouldn't be likely to brake. *shrugs* i'm glad i know how to handle it now if one ever did.
@SarahAriella@xanga - Hear hear! If we're going to be "up in arms" about murcury, let's take it out of EVERYTHING, not just light bulbs. It's just as dangerous...nay, it is MORE dangerous in our children's vaccines than in a lightbulb, in my opinion.
(I notice no-one else has even commented about this...)
I hate those bulbs. I hate the way they look and how I can turn on the light and go into a room, come out of a room and then the light turns on. We have a few in our house but wherever there is a cfl there is also a regular light bulb so that there isn't a delay in light.
I never plan on buying more myself. Most of the ones in our house were purchased by our [old] landlord. We bought some fancy ones for our bathroom vanity and all but one has burnt out.... They do not last 5 years! What a waste of my money.
Also, they are meant to be turned on an left on. That is where you save energy in them. But we do not just leave our lights on so we are not saving energy or money by using them.
I also had no idea about the clean-up process. I actually didn't even know they had mercury in them.
They have recently discovered they give off a high level of u/v rays that are harmful in long exposure.
@MommySherrell@xanga - I'm kinda in the same manner. I think people are kinda two sided when it comes to anything. "Oh its only good when it helps me but god forsake anything that takes me a little out of my way."
I really didn't reply to it tho because I have almost no knowledge when it comes to mercury or vaccines in general :/
@thinkin_up_dreams@xanga - Totally understandable. It's better to not make a comment based on ignorance than to blab when you know nothing. Not a lot of people are that smart, but it's good to see you are. :)
Again, this seriously makes me angry because people can't see the grander scheme of things above short-term risks. For some reason they can't make the logical leap from localized, obvious-looking risk of "broken bulb on my kitchen floor" to country-wide, subtle but far more dangerous risk of "trace amounts of mercury accumulating in the environment in completely uncontrolled and unknown paths." It's not just about caring about other species and ecosystems, lawl I gave up THAT ideal long ago, the danger is in the resources that *we* use. Our food, water, building materials, everything.
When I get back from class I'll try to find some numbers comparing the amount of mercury in a light bulb to the amount in an average meal of tuna fish, where the source is very likely to be coal power plants. The lesson here isn't to not eat fish, or not use fluorescents or avoid dangerous materials at all costs (good luck with that), it's to learn to live with changing technology.
And the fact that people don't know that fluorescents contain mercury just floors me. Not only had I assumed it was fairly common knowledge, I also made the bad assumption that people actually learn about products before they buy them. Need help finding recycling? Here. It has handy-dandy links to a map where you can find recycling programs in your county and other information. http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/hazard/wastetypes/universal/lamps/index.htm
I do use them, but no kids so that's not an issue. Perhaps you should only use them for overhead/ceiling lights that are out of reach of the kiddies, until they're old enough?