From Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News
Mercury vapor released from broken compact fluorescent light bulbs can exceed safe exposure levels
New Rochelle, NY, July, 6, 2011—Once broken, a compact fluorescent light bulb continuously releases mercury vapor into the air for weeks to months, and the total amount can exceed safe human exposure levels in a poorly ventilated room, according to study results reported in Environmental Engineering Science, a peer-reviewed online only journal published monthly by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com). The article is available free online at www.liebertpub.com/ees
The amount of liquid mercury (Hg) that leaches from a broken compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) is lower than the level allowed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), so CFLs are not considered hazardous waste. However, Yadong Li and Li Jin, Jackson State University (Jackson, MS) report that the total amount of Hg vapor released from a broken CFL over time can be higher than the amount considered safe for human exposure.
They document their findings in the article “Environmental Release of Mercury from Broken Compact Fluorescent Lamps.”
As people can readily inhale vapor-phase mercury, the authors suggest rapid removal of broken CFLs and adequate ventilation, as well as suitable packaging to minimize the risk of breakage of CFLs and to retain Hg vapor if they do break, thereby limiting human exposure.
Tests of eight different brands of CFLs and four different wattages revealed that Hg content varies significantly from brand to brand. To determine the amount of Hg released by a broken CFL, Li and Jin used standard procedures developed by the EPA to measure leaching of mercury in liquids and used an emission monitoring system to detect Hg vapor.
“This paper is a very nice holistic analysis of potential risks associated with mercury release from broken CFLs and points to potential human health threats that have not always been considered,” according to Domenico Grasso, PhD, Editor-in-Chief and Vice President for Research, Dean of the Graduate College, University of Vermont (Burlington).
Environmental Engineering Science is an authoritative interdisciplinary journal publishing state-of-the-art studies of innovative solutions to problems in air, water, and land contamination and waste disposal. It features applications of environmental engineering and scientific discoveries, policy issues, environmental economics, and sustainable development. Complete tables of content and a free sample issue may be viewed online at www.liebertpub.com/ees
Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, including Sustainability: The Journal of Record, Environmental Justice, and Industrial Biotechnology. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry’s most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm’s 60 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available at www.liebertpub.com
CFL’s suck not because they are CFL’s, but because of the place of origin. My very old Sylvania’s, made in the US of A, worked as advertised. No flicker, instant on, bright, clean light. And died exactly on schedule (per the carton). Alas, no longer made. The crap at Home Depot comes from the folks across the big pond. With big problems. LED’s will be great if the price comes out of the stratosphere.
Now for the heretic view:
Back in the stone age, in science classes, we used liquid mecury. (gasp!) Made barometers, manometers, floated pieces of iron, coated dimes (when they really had silver in them), even touched the stuff. What happened to all us brain damaged types? Well, we invented the personal computer, cell phone, GPS, flat screen displays (mostly using ccfl’s), iPhones,Pods,Pads, video games and the Internet (oops, Al Gore did that one). And what became of the more intelligent types who shunned science and avoided all that toxic Hg? They became lawyers, politicians, and Community Organizers.
Gee, my CFLs are breaking all the time. Not the glass, though that sometimes too. Too many young boys, doing things in the house they should not.
We did, however, replace our kitchen lights with LED lights. They are way too expensive, but the light is really bright and nice.
Get hard use incandescents from a proper electrical wholesaler. Because they are for inspection lamps etc that get thrown around they last ages but cost a few pence more. Seem to be exempt from stupid market manipulating laws in the uk.
I think a few are missing the point about the threat of CFL vs fluorescent.
Here’s the deal. Fluroescents are typically used in a very controlled environment compared to CFLs. As pointed out earlier, they are typically changed by experienced individuals and disposal routines and regs are known. Compare this to typical households. The CFLs will be changed by the taller person in the house. In my case, that would be my 6ft.+ teenager. Guess what? He doesn’t care about mercury. He’s not familiar with disposal routines. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not worried about the mercury itself, but it will find its way to the land and water via ordinary trash and rubbish. Because that’s where the majority of the CFLs will end up. They won’t be boxed or double bagged or anything. They go right in the trash bin. Then it will leach into the ground and water system. Then we’ll have even more environmental alarm.
Laws will be passed. Expensive and unnecessary clean-up will commence. Any company stupid enough to open a production plant in the U.S. will be closed. Jobs will be lost. Retail units will take an inventory hit. You and I will pay for all of the above.
Why will this occur? Because of our complacent tolerance of the entirely vapid yet well meaning morons(manipulate by not-so-well-meaning people) that seek to show us a better way of living…….. collectively, of course. I truly hope someone is writing the BS down for posterity. Future generations will be gobsmacked(and laugh at us) about how a very small insipidly vapid, yet vocal group of people were allowed to dictate the populous to engage in various act of stupidity……….. this just being one of the finer examples. How long will the general populous allow these people such authority over their everyday lives? How long will the general populous remain as sheep? For Perpetuity? And to think this occurred in a land that once boasted liberty above all else. PPHHHFFFFTTTT.
According to the nice MSHA inspectors who visited our mine site every quarter, cleaning up Mercury is one tough job. Actually, if one even bothered to read the warnings on the box the miserable things come in… not to mention they look as fragile as they really are…
Mercury very bad for nervous system and internal organs.
Mad as a hatter it can make you.
Edison very smart man, make light bulb that humans can live with.
Who leaves a broken CFL lying about in a closed room?
Everyone on the entire planet cleans up the broken class and disposes of it.
And when a standard fluorescent tube with it’s much larger mercury content is broken it is also disposed of quickly.
Nothing to fear here given the obvious countermeasures.
Last year, I was sent a box of four CFLs, free of charge, by my electricity supplier. They arrived by post, and on opening the package, I found one broken, and two non-working. I didn’t take a chance with the remaining one, and sent the whole package back to the supplier, with a note declining any replacements. I hate the things.
In the Oz Navy we had copious instructions for the cleaning up of broken fluorescent lamps that required us to treat them as radioactive sources. Ever tried to pick up small pieces of glass while wearing very thick, non-flexible rubber gloves?
Let’s not forget that a “poorly ventilated room” = “a green well insulated room.” The two are one and the same. It’s intriguing how, according to those hot on ‘green’ or ‘environmentally friendly’ or ‘AGW’ or what-have-you along these lines, according to those sorts whenever being well insulated is a “good” thing that saves energy then the space is described as “well insulated” or “efficient” or similar positive terms. That very same space, when the discussion involves a negative, is suddenly “poorly ventilated.” Sheesh.
Plus, how quickly do all energy savings vanish if whenever a CFL is broken one has to open windows and doors for a few hours of “ventilation,” quite possibly with the addition of a fan to enhance ‘ventilation’ – and the temperatures outside happen to be either very cold or very hot? Or for that matter even just moderately warm or cool?
Retired Engineer says:
July 6, 2011 at 4:28 pm
Dang, that’s what I shoulda said, very good.
At least I did help help build the Arpanet, the predecessor to the Internet. Of course, one of those pieces was Email, sorry about how that turned out.
Thunder storms here – we lost power for the second time this evening. I never would have imagined I’d be on a network thanks to my laptop and an Uninterruptable Power supply that is powering the cable modem and other infrastructure. I did turn off my main computer for more modem time….
Let’s see. The amount of mercury spilled from a broken CFL is below acceptable exposure amounts, or some such EPA bureaucratese. But, spilled milk on a dairy farm is toxic?
Where is Greenpeace? Where is Friends of the Earth?
Are there more global warming refugees than CFL mercury victims? The world may never know. Seriously, the mercury scare is alarmist BS. Most of you have elevated inorganic mercury from amalgam fillings. I know I do. We are remarkably tolerant to inorganic mercury. Unless you can point to the bodies of the victims of broken CFLs, then what you have is alarmism and uncecessary regulations. Sorry to see this on WUWT. Try reading this physician’s opinion piece and realize how much inorganic mercury people were exposed to in the recent past in order to produce real toxicity: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1070962/
So much for any more “eating a light bulb” stunts on YouTube.
We are so doomed!
Question:
“How many “Greenies” does it take to change a CFL?”
Answer:
No one knows – they are so busy saving the world they don’t realize they are in the dark.
or
at least two – one to unscrew the CFL and one to decide whether to dispose of it in either “paper or plastic”.
or
one to hold the ladder, one to climb the ladder and unscrew the CFL bulb, one to call the local Hazardous Material Waste Disposal Unit, one each at every entrance to the room to prevent anyone from entering the potentially hazordous area, and, of course, one to photograph the proceedings to document it for their website.
or…
Knock on wood, but we’ve been using CFLs in the many can lights in our house and have never had a breakage or any other incident. Every one of them has lasted at least 8 years, even in the kitchen and bathrooms.
That said, I also have some vintage lamps that only take low-wattage incandescent bulbs.
Regardless, the government has no business telling me what kind of light bulbs or appliances or toilets to buy.
Yeah, don’t like CFL. See the new CRT bulbs, though? Just as efficient, better light. The downside is the light emitting part has to have a larger base, so the light bulb ends up being pretty large.
Mercury poisoning
from Wikipedia
Consumption of whale and dolphin meat, as is the practice in Japan, is a source of high levels of mercury poisoning. Tetsuya Endo, a professor at the Health Sciences University of Hokkaido, has tested whale meat purchased in the whaling town of Taiji and found mercury levels that are more than 20 times acceptable Japanese standards(haha from me)
Mercury and its compounds are particularly toxic to fetuses and infants. Women who have been exposed to mercury in pregnancy have sometimes given birth to children with serious birth defects(very worrying from me)
In humans, approximately 80% of inhaled mercury vapor is absorbed via the respiratory tract where it enters the circulatory system and is distributed throughout the body.[17] Chronic exposure by inhalation, even at low concentrations in the range 0.7–42 μg/m3, has been shown in case control studies to cause effects such as tremors, impaired cognitive skills, and sleep disturbance in workers.[18][19]
Jeff Albers: So far I’ve never had any quit working. The oldest one I’ve got going is on my porch, for at least 8 years.
I think you’re the exception then! That’s one of my main beefs with the things. They do not last anywhere near the time they are touted to last. I’ve had to replace many of them much, much earlier than the end of their projected lifetime.
Gayle says:
July 6, 2011 at 9:30 pm
Jeff Albers: So far I’ve never had any quit working. The oldest one I’ve got going is on my porch, for at least 8 years.
I think you’re the exception then! That’s one of my main beefs with the things. They do not last anywhere near the time they are touted to last. I’ve had to replace many of them much, much earlier than the end of their projected lifetime.
========================================================
Wait for the lifetime guarantee of LEDs!!!
What could go wrong?
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6046/5911393665_97865e3476_z.jpg
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6027/5911959238_366d5d6b98_m.jpg
[mod: these are pics of CFLs]
The expression “mad as a hatter” refers to the effect of breathing mercury fumes by those engaged in making felt hats in victorian times, could this be what has happened to Gore and his church followers?
re post by: JohnWho says: July 6, 2011 at 7:51 pm
Oh lordy. You remind me of a couple of very old & very non-PC light bulb joke & now I can’t resist.
Q: How many men does it take to change a light bulb? There are two possible correct and utterly non-PC answers to this one, as follows:
A: Option 1. None. Real Men aren’t afraid of the dark.
A: Option 2. None. A Real Man makes his wife change it.
Note: Upon being addressed by hubby with Option 2, said wife simply smiles sweetly and replies with Option 1 of course. {VBG}
Option 1 is from the days of “real men” jokes, & option two was my own contribution to the genre back then ;0) It was just too tempting to add a Macho twist to the Real Man version, along with the Real Woman reply to match it.)
Q: How many -pick your non-pc group who’s intelligence you wish to deride & insert here- does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Five. One to climb the ladder, one to pass up new light bulb and take possession of the old, and three to turn the ladder.
Do I need to beg forgiveness now? Or just don flame suit?
We never had this trouble with tungsten vapour in the Good Old Days.