Great, just great. Don’t get me wrong, I like the LED bulbs, I have several in my house. But when we get back to basics, a tungsten light bulb doesn’t require a haz-mat squad to dispose of. It’s glass, ceramic, tungsten, some thin steel, and tin solder (if ROHS). CFL bulbs and now LED bulbs are so much more eco unfriendly and when they inevitably end up in landfills, they become a source of heavy metal. We may have gained short term energy efficiency, but the long term payback may not be worth it.
LED products billed as eco-friendly contain toxic metals, study finds
UC researchers tested holiday bulbs, traffic lights and car beams
From UC Irvine:
Those light-emitting diodes marketed as safe, environmentally preferable alternatives to traditional lightbulbs actually contain lead, arsenic and a dozen other potentially hazardous substances, according to newly published research.
“LEDs are touted as the next generation of lighting. But as we try to find better products that do not deplete energy resources or contribute to global warming, we have to be vigilant about the toxicity hazards of those marketed as replacements,” said Oladele Ogunseitan, chair of UC Irvine’s Department of Population Health & Disease Prevention.
He and fellow scientists at UCI and UC Davis crunched, leached and measured the tiny, multicolored lightbulbs sold in Christmas strands; red, yellow and green traffic lights; and automobile headlights and brake lights. Their findings? Low-intensity red lights contained up to eight times the amount of lead allowed under California law, but in general, high-intensity, brighter bulbs had more contaminants than lower ones. White bulbs copntained the least lead, but had high levels of nickel.
“We find the low-intensity red LEDs exhibit significant cancer and noncancer potentials due to the high content of arsenic and lead,” the team wrote in the January 2011 issue of Environmental Science & Technology, referring to the holiday lights. Results from the larger lighting products will be published later, but according to Ogunseitan, “it’s more of the same.”
Lead, arsenic and many additional metals discovered in the bulbs or their related parts have been linked in hundreds of studies to different cancers, neurological damage, kidney disease, hypertension, skin rashes and other illnesses. The copper used in some LEDs also poses an ecological threat to fish, rivers and lakes.
Ogunseitan said that breaking a single light and breathing fumes would not automatically cause cancer, but could be a tipping point on top of chronic exposure to another carcinogen. And – noting that lead tastes sweet – he warned that small children could be harmed if they mistake the bright lights for candy.
Risks are present in all parts of the lights and at every stage during production, use and disposal, the study found. Consumers, manufacturers and first responders to accident scenes ought to be aware of this, Ogunseitan said. When bulbs break at home, residents should sweep them up with a special broom while wearing gloves and a mask, he advised. Crews dispatched to clean up car crashes or broken traffic fixtures should don protective gear and handle the material as hazardous waste. Currently, LEDs are not classified as toxic and are disposed of in regular landfills. Ogunseitan has forwarded the study results to California and federal health regulators.
He cites LEDs as a perfect example of the need to mandate product replacement testing. The diodes are widely hailed as safer than compact fluorescent bulbs, which contain dangerous mercury. But, he said, they weren’t properly tested for potential environmental health impacts before being marketed as the preferred alternative to inefficient incandescent bulbs, now being phased out under California law. A long-planned state regulation originally set to take effect Jan. 1 would have required advance testing of such replacement products. But it was opposed by industry groups, a less stringent version was substituted, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger placed the law on hold days before he left office.
“I’m frustrated, but the work continues,” said Ogunseitan, a member of the state Department of Toxic Substances Control’s Green Ribbon Science Panel. He said makers of LEDs and other items could easily reduce chemical concentrations or redesign them with truly safer materials. “Every day we don’t have a law that says you cannot replace an unsafe product with another unsafe product, we’re putting people’s lives at risk,” he said. “And it’s a preventable risk.”
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The California Air Resources Board and all its subsidiaries and off-shoots have no idea whatsoever about science. They all have this strange idea that the world should be this sanitized place with no trace of anything that might cause a problem. I bet they would fall for the old dihydrogen oxide death joke and run with it. After all tens of thousands of people ARE KILLED each year by the dangers of dihydrogen oxide, and it surrounds us everywhere in the environment. (I understand it is a powerful greenhouse gas as well – in fact there is a good bit of it in my hydroponic greenhouse.)
As for the light bulbs, other than improving the recycling ability, LED bulbs are fine. I especially appreciate that with just a little engineering, an LED array can be built with just about any desired spectral properties. The application in specialty lighting and potentially in indoor agriculture could be very good. Of course I haven’t seen any research written up on people actually trying spectral manipulation versus yields for plants to optimize the spectrum in LEDs Most of the “grow-light” products I have seen have either been fluorescent or some sort of gas/incandescent hybrid.
LazyTeenager says:
February 10, 2011 at 10:52 pm
———–
Get a clue and look at the balance sheet of an energy company. Somehow you are forgetting that energy does not grow on trees; it needs to pay for fuel, labour, plant capital costs etc. Energy companies are not hugely profitable.
And you are also fogetting the profits pay for your superannuation
/////////////////////////////////////////////
I do not know what planet Lazy Teenager resides on but it is certainly not planet Earth. In the UK, energy companies are raking in the profits. See for eample the article in the Daily Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/consumertips/household-bills/7292915/Energy-companies-making-105-profit-per-customer.html
There are probably about 25 to 30 million domestic customers in the UK so it is easy to do the maths. Then there is the profit that they make from business customers. They are extremely profitable businesses since they are effectively in a monopoly situation. There are only two good things that come out of this. The amount of corporation tax paid to the government and much of the high dividends they pay to the shareholders go to pension funds.
I heard that GE stands for Government Entitilements.
I heard that GE stands for Government Entitlements.
I said:
> Perhaps I’m missing something here. Have you any evidence that LED’s
> are chemically or environmentally harmful?
Hello, Earth to Anthony! Do you read me? LED lights may be unpleasant to look at, or underpowered compared to tungsten, but LED’s pose no environmental or ecological hazard to mankind.
Where did you get the idea that they’re in the same hazard class as CFL’s?
Anthony and commentors,
Thanks for the stimulating discussion on LED and CFL lighting. I have been researching LED lights (tried CFLs – hate the light color, the life, the cost, the cleanup if one breaks…) and do check LEDs out – the big hardware chains have an entire subsection of them.
LEDs are getting better and better and I think the recycling of LED bulb and spot sized lights will eventually become a no-brainer as there are good sized aluminum heat sinks on all of them and aluminum is an easy (and valuable) metal to recycle so I think there will be a market for the recycled heatsinks and a market solution to separating the printed circuit board and LED from the valuable heatsink.
Having said that, I am absolutely opposed to government intervention mandating the use of this or that bulb. Incandescent bulbs have a wonderful ability to reproduce color – there is not any artificial lighting I know of that matches that property of incandescent lighting. This is a valuable thing and if incandescents are effectively banned our lives will be poorer for it.
So the science is settled, the biggest threat to the environment is environmentalists and people who listen to them.
@Angry Exile – As Halogen lamps are still a simple filament there will be no damage caused by dimming, unlike most CFL’s with electronic ballasts. However the inside of the quartz envelope is likely to become blackened with metal deposits from the filament. According to the Wiki page this can be reversed by running at full brightness again:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halogen_lamp
Of course any benefit of superior light quality and brightness will go out the door if you dim them! If you want long life dimmable lighting, and don’t mind conventional tube type fluorescents, these can be run with special electronic ballasts allowing complete control down to virtually nothing. I doubt if many domestic “sparkies” are familiar with them, but they are used in large numbers in industrial and farming environments.
In all the years I’ve been using CFLs, I’ve only have one break, because a lamp stored in the garage got pushed over and broke. I haven’t had to change a CFL bulb yet, and have NEVER had a problem with breakage screwing one in. I think the hype is high on both sides of this issue.
JJB MKI says:
February 11, 2011 at 3:57 am
“I also suspect the Department of Toxic Substances Control are going to be very keen on finding substances to control.”
You seem to be one of the very few here who “get it”. It has nothing to do about whether or not the arsenic or mercury causes any harm or not. That is completely irrelevant. CO2 is beneficial, but that did not stop EPA from regulating it!
Remember the Erin Brockovich scam? She was a “legal assistant” who shut down a power company in CA because of hexavalent chromium at 0.5 ppm? Scientists have just determined that everywhere has Cr-6 in the water, and that there has been an actual “lower level of cancer rates” in the town (Hinckley) near “Ground Zero” (the power plant). ILower mortality rate than the norm, also. It turns out that Cr is an essential element needed for insulin to function.
So it has absolutely nothing to do with whether Hg or Pb cause harm, but whether the levels can be measured. As we refine our machines to measure things better (we can measure atoms of things now, parts per nonillion), EPA keeps lowering tolerable levels, then dividing by 1000 as a “safety margin”.
It turns out that there is a harmful level of mercury in CFLs. The brighter the CFL, by the way, the more mercury. And NO, it is not the same as long fluorescence bulbs, but is released as a gas when broken, especially if broken while hot.
That does not matter, anyway. Mark my words, the ambulance chasers like Erin Brockovich will be suing the manufacturers and stockpilers of CFLs in future years. It is a big business. Erin Brockovich is still stumping for ambulance chasers on TV today, which forces us to pay higher insurance rates, and destines the weak-minded to a cowering fate.
I am not worried about the GaAs in LEDs. It is just that the light sucks unless you spend a fortune on bulbs and equipment. It does not matter whether it is a toxic level. What matters, is if I put a thousand of these in land fills and crush them, “can I measure the higher level of arsenic?” The answer: of course I can, especially if you give me a grant to measure it.
So it is not “actual” worry that matters, but “virtual worry”.
Henry@RichardVerney.
Thanks, that makes sense to me! It is true. You can make it yourself. Just copy a good design. But most people might not be that technically inclined. Anyway, when you ge a subsidy, who wants to do that work?
Just be careful in places where it freezes during winter. I had one winter in Pretoria (where freezing is rare, so I did not expect a problem) and had to throw away one whole panel. If it freezes in your area in inter, you can either build a closed system (where the water is mixed with anti freeze) or you can buy a valve that automatically opens if the water is getting too cold. This water valve (at the roof panel) opens which allows letting fresh water of higher temperature coming in.
Are these morons totally brain dead ? Does the University of California now give classes in terminal stupidity ?
For the un-initiated studies have shown that there are a sizeable number of naturally occuring materials in the environment that are known to be toxic.
Of the simplest class of these materials, the number presently stands at 92 known toxic materials, although at least one and maybe two of those that were believed to exist, have not yet been found in nature. The other 90 are pervasive and have known health risks. Some of them bring about death through asphyxiation when inhaled (like the UC study mentions) while other destroy cells and other parts of the body.
Hello ! Earth to UC Irvine ! Copper has been reported in more than trace amounts in the wiring in ALL homes and buildings in California. Likewise, the plumbing and piping in many houses and buildings, are believed to contain lethal amounts of copper, which can poison water, if it should get on the outside of the pipe.
As for Arsenic in LEDs, most modern LEDs contain no Arsenic at all. Modern efficient Red, Orange, or Yellow LEDs are quartenary crystals of AlInGaP. The shorter wavelength types are based on GaN or InGaN.
Back when I was making LEDs (red ones) we used a lot of Arsenic. The basic red LED material was GaAs0.6P0.4, emitting at about 645 nm peak wavelength; but the substrates were 100% GaAs, which we made right here in silicon valley. We had in our building in Si Valley, enough arsenic, to poison every living thing in the known Universe; plus all the parallel universes.
Anybody who worked in the departments with that material or with the recycling of that material, got tested every month for arsenic contamination. NO Employee, every tested positive for arsenic contamination. We also had Arsenic in gaseous form; Arsine, AsH4 which smells like garlic. Well we also had Phosphine, PH4 which is just as toxic. Don’t forget Silane, used in Silicon operations.
All our computers contain copper, and nickel.
Everything we touch, see or feel is made from some combination of these 90 basic toxic materials which are found in nature.
It seems to me, that we are wasting entirely too much money on total idiots at the Universtity of California Irvine; and it’s time to turn those fools out to pasture; maybe they can find some safe place out in the widerness; where they don’t have to worry about women and little children getting harmed.
It’s fun to constantly have new teech appearing. But it should never be forced huppon us. What’s so hard to understand for our legislators?
I use CFL for the bathroom and normal light bulb for the rest of the house.
I have a laundry room cupboard stuffed full of hoarded incandescents. Here in Canada, our wise “conservative” government banned the unfairly vilified incandescent bulb, which is set to fully kick in next year. I’ll be damned if the government feels it can dictate how I light my home by legislative fiat.
I switched our outdoor spot lights to CFL bulbs a few years back (after PG&E went with their 5 tier pricing program for electricity) to cut our baseline usage a bit. We live a rather cool to cold winter location and I use tungsten bulbs in many indoor locations as they provide some heat along with light. My in-laws use a tungsten bulb in their pump house to prevent their piping from freezing during the winter. So my in-laws and I don’t consider the heat from the bulbs wasted energy- in fact we like it. I hate to think that we will have to go to Nevada to get the bulbs we want to use for our specific needs.
“And – noting that lead tastes sweet – he warned that small children could be harmed if they mistake the bright lights for candy.”
Really?
I mean….really….?
My three-year-old is no supergenius, but I’m confident he already knows that there is no overlap on a Venn diagram of “Things That Glow” vs. “Foodstuffs.” Even before he could talk, and only used basic sign language to communicate, not once did he point to the chandelier, and then signal “Hey! I wanna eat that!”
Maybe I sell the boy short, and he really is a supergenius.
George:
Indium ? Gallium ?
OMG—it’s worse than we thought.
Mark Miller says:
February 11, 2011 at 8:44 am
Nothing like curling up with a book to a nice, warm, incandescent in the winter. Ever try curling up to a cold LED? Brrr. I think I’ll read a Kindle book instead.
The point is, we can “feel” the light, just like we can feel the sunlight. It provides comfort as well as light.
Eureka: I’ve got it! We can make LEDs with heating filaments (maybe infrared elements) alongside to provide the warmth we need! I should patent that. Oops! Too late, I divulged.
@ur momisugly Dave Ward – 7:55am
Normally we leave them near full brightness anyway. The only reason for the dimmer is the TV’s in there and depending what we’re watching we might want the light turned down a bit. Since it’s an existing light designed for regular bayonet fitting bulbs I was happy to replace just the bulbs for about ten bucks rather than get an electrician in just because Canberra fell for the hype and banned regular light bulbs. Thanks for all the info, it’s been very illuminating…
… I’ll get me coat.
“”””” Curiousgeorge says:
February 11, 2011 at 5:21 am
@M.A.DeLuca says:
February 10, 2011 at 8:47 pm
Wait. What?
Except for the anode and cathode, the guts of an LED are encased in a thick layer of plastic. “””””
Well that is just total nonsense. While the “anode and cathode” (hint to reader; that’s THE LED) do not have to be encased in plastic; the chances of finding ANY LED lamp where the “anode and cathode” are NOT encased in plastic, is about 27 orders of magnitude short of zero.
Light emitting Semiconductive materials have very high refractice indices; 3.5 is a quite typical range. A bare LED die sitting out in air, will only let about 1% of the total light generated inside, the die, to escape out ito the air. For an index of 3.5, the critical angle is 16.6 degrees, and the normal reflection coefficient is about 30%, so most of the generated flux is trapped insoide the die by Total Internal Reflection (TIR). Encapsulating the die in a plastic of index (n) will raise the light output by more than (n)^2; and with proper geometry you can get beyond (n)^4 times the light output.
The only time bare LEDs were ever used, was in displays that were required to be hermetically sealed for Military applications.
Both Phillips, and Cree Research are currently marketing some very good LED lamps. Phillips has a good 40 Watt Equivalent that is about $22; and I have a number of those in my house. I am systematically going through and replaceing all CFLs by LEDs, and also replacing Incandescents wherever I can.
Some Hong Kong Fooey LED lamps seem to have been designed by brain dead people. I haves ome that are about $15 and replace 15 Watt decortative lamps. The do not turn on instantly; take about a second to kick on for some unexplained reason that has nothing to do with LEDs. Also for some reason, those same lamps can NOT be used on dimmers.
Now there’s a smart idea; who has a candelabra with decorative bulbs, that is NOT on a dimmer.
LEDs are the absolutely perfect dimmable lamp. Incandescents are very inefficient when dimmed; the color temperature goes to hell, and they become near IR lamps instead of visible light emitters.
So why anybody is making a non-dimmable LED is beyond my pay grade to comprehend; you have to go out of your way to make an LED lamp that cannot be dimmed.
I told the folks at Frys that their whole LED lamp department, belongs at ToysR’us. It’s all kiddie stuff with no seriosu LED lamp products worth wasting your time on. I did buy some of the 15 Watt eventual turn on lamps, because they are nice spherical globes, and they go into the front hallway light which is not dimmable, and is always turned on by my wife, before she even steps through the front door.
I wouldn’t waste the money on LED bulbs that are some number of T 1 3/4 indicator lamps on a pc board (That’s 5 mm dia lamps if you aren’t up on LED nomenclature)
If you pick up any ordinary LED indicator lamp, you will see that there is about as much light coming out the back as comes out the front, and the ones that are supposed to be very narrow beam, aren’t. Hold them against a white sheet, and you will see the bright central spot, but with a great big wide angle ring halo around them; the result ofr TIR inside the plastic encapsulation; which is also why half the light comes out the back. The people who design these products, are mechanical packaging engineers, who think that Optical Engineering, is mechanical packaging usieng transparent materials. They don’t know diddley squat about Optical Design or the laws of Optics. Just look at the lousy designs of current auto tail lights that are LED based.
LED lamps are quite safe and not toxic when used for their intended purpose. You are more likely to die from a broken neck through tripping in an unlit hallway, than you are to get poisoned by an LED; and the margin, is that same 27 orders of magnitude.
My objection to CFLs (or LEDs for that matter) is not just practical (but that as well) but that I am compelled by law to use them, or more correctly, prevented by law from using fluorescents. It seems that the public in the US, EU and Australia are all in the same boat – what a coincidence!
If, as some have suggested here, low energy bulbs are such a good idea, then they will naturally take over from inferior older technology, like cars replaced horse carriages, steam replaced sail, and the telephone replaced the telegraph. Those diehards that are massive fans of horse-power are free to continue (the Queen for instance).
If however the situation is so serious that government intervention is required to stop people using inefficient fluorescent technology, then why allow people to live in houses with more rooms (and lightbulbs) than they need? Thinking about it, why allow domestic lighting at all? We could all wear miner’s helmets and then only need one lightbulb each!
I can’t believe you fall for this *crap*. It’s all doom and gloom, man’s fault, and, they even suggested a “tipping point” for cancer. Do you not read your own website?
So, the arsenic is semiconductors is in the wrong form to cause cancer. Their finding is crap.
The idea of copper being a fish toxin is a real knee-slapper. The anti-fouling compounds used on boats use copper to stop barnacle formation, but, copper is one of the most abundant metals on the planet *AND* and *ESSENTIAL TRACE ELEMENT* without which life in an oxygen environment cannot exist (see Cu/Zn Superoxide dismutase) among others. Copper pollution from LED’s is like spitting into the ocean.
Everyone likes to harp on the bogey-man of lead & mercury poisoning. Usually only kids get serious lead poisoning, and, that’s from eating lead paint (lead is sweet-tasting). That poisoning usually comes as developmental issues, not death. Mercury poisoning is tough to do. Mercury is present in ~50% concentration in dental amalgam and regularly leaches out into saliva and is passed through the intestine, basically eliminating it. Methyl-mercury is present in fish, and, people with a high fish intake can get methyl-mercury poisoning. Once again, the additional mercury from landfilling these bulbs is like spitting into the ocean. We have substantial mercury right in our own mouths, a practice that has been banned in some countries and may be banned in the US in the future. It’s mostly safe…. but sometimes not.
So, are these people really your allies in bringing back the bulb. It sounds like they’re the same people hyping the end-of-civilization in someone else’s field. They should not be supported.
Spooky coincidence. One of the halogen lights I’ve been asking about has chosen now to go ping. What can it mean? Apart from that I need to go and buy another bulb 😉
Let’s face it. The switch from incandescent bulbs was just a scam that made some poiticians and civil servants very rich. CO2 my a**e.
“Let me guess: your kitchen has had fluorescent tubes in it since the 1950′s. The only difference between these and CFLs is the size.
So you have been whining about fluorescent tubes all that time? I don’t think so.”
Wrong; there are several differences between the tube flourescents and CFL “bulbs,” including (but not limited to) the separation of the starter & ballast from the illumination tube, and the thought that went into the replacement process / design for the tubes. You don’t put shear loads across the glass on a tube to remove / install it, and it is a much-larger diameter tube of glass.
To take out an old-style flourescent tube, you’re twisting, with enough force to push a metal pin past a metal spring-clip. Very likely that the glass is strong enough to resist that pressure. Let’s say you were tasked to break one of these tubes using only your bare hands. Would you try to break the tube by grasping it with both hands and twisting in opposite directions? No. You’re going to apply pressure perpendicular to the tube, and snap it half.
To take out a CFL, you’re likely using the “natural handle” of the glass spiral itself to exert pressure in precisely that direction, perpendicular to the glass tube at the base, to cause the entire unit to rotate, exerting enough force to overcome the friction of metal against metal for the entire surface area of the screw and socket. Now factor in possible additional “squeeze” from heat expansion. Now factor in possible additional friction from dust accumulation in the socket of the fixture. Now factor in how much smaller the diameter of the glass tube is, compared to the old-style flourescent.
This is a completely unnecessary and fixable design-flaw in CFLs. Yet it persists.
And as for the need to retrofit and include a starter & ballast into the CFL, because of this, the bulb will always be larger than a filament-bulb. I have several fixtures in my house that a CFL simply will not fit into, of both the standard-sized screw and the candelabra-sized screw. Ever see the recesses for the appliance bulbs in your clothes dryer, microwave, and oven?
Finally, assuming you’ve finally provided a bulb that will fit into these tight spaces, how well do you think the plastic housings on a CFL or an LED retrofit-bulb will fare when the dryer is loaded with towels on maximum heat? How well will it fare when I’m searing a roast at 500°F in the oven, or running the self-clean cycle?