# CFLs and mercury



## PhotonWrangler (Apr 29, 2007)

Cost of an energy saving CFL - $5.00
Cost of the labor to change it - $.10
Cost of the cleanup when the bulb breaks - PRICEY

I was wondering when the other shoe was going to drop on this topic. Every one of those bulbs has mercury in it, and it doesn't take much to peg the ol' applause meter when it comes to the EPA's standards for safe levels.


----------



## greg_in_canada (Apr 29, 2007)

I've wondered about that myself. But houses, businesses and schools etc have been using full size fluorescent bulbs for decades. Do they do cleanup everytime one of these breaks?

Greg


----------



## jtr1962 (Apr 29, 2007)

Sensational journalism if you ask me. Why don't the writers of this article get all upset by the billions of linear tubes in use in commercial buildings? They have to eventually be disposed of as well. So what's their solution to that problem? Have businesses go back to using incandescent bulbs so that we need to build something like 100 more generating plants right away (which incidentally would emit copious amounts of mercury and a plethora of other harmful substances)? And what about all the landfill generated by those incandescent bulbs which have 1/10 the lifetime of CFLs and 1/40 the lifetime of linear tubes? While we're at it, they also conveniently forget that by the time most of these bans kick in, CFLs will pretty much be rendered obsolete by LEDs.

Fact is that any human activity is going to have a negative impact. It's a matter of doing what has the least overall impact. While I'm not a big fan of CFLs I'm even less a fan of incandescents. I personally think a better solution would have been using linear tubes exclusively since the T8s came out in the late 1980s. This would have worked well until roughly 2010 when LEDs should become viable.

I also think the guy overreacted when the CFL dropped on the carpet. Just clean the debris up, keep the windows open for a few days, and there should be no mercury hazard. And ditching the carpet wouldn't have been a bad idea, either. Carpets are just filthy, disgusting things no matter how often they're "cleaned". The problem the DEP found was probably caused by the carpet absorbing mercury. Carpets tend to absorb and/or emit all kinds of toxins. In fact, I wouldn't at all be surprised if the high mercury levels were caused by debris on the carpet tracked in on shoes, or even emitted by the chemicals the carpet is made of, rather than the broken CFL. Typical making a mountain out of a molehill thinking which is all too pervasive nowadays. I've broken a few CFLs by accident after changing them. I just wipe the glass up with a wet paper towel, put it all in a plastic bag surrounded by a few layers of newspaper, and throw it away. I've never had any symptoms of mercury poisoning, but then again we have all hard flooring here (wood or ceramic tile) which can't absorb appreciable amounts of volatiles.

On another note, dental fillings, which are in direct contact with your mouth, contain more mercury than any CFL. These don't seem to cause any problems most of the time even if accidentally swallowed.

Honestly, as far as problems from poisons go, I'm _way_ more concerned about the effects of auto exhaust than mercury in CFLs. Sure, I hope we switch to mercury-free LEDs as soon as possible, but in the meantime I have zero problems using any form of flourescent lighting, including CFLs.

Since the mercury stays contained unless the tube breaks, why not make the tubes out of plastic instead of glass? Problem solved. I also feel there _should_ be proper routes to dispose of spent fluorescent tubes to keep mercury accumulations out of landfills (this is where the real mercury hazard is).


----------



## PhotonWrangler (Apr 29, 2007)

No, but that doesn't make it the right thing to do.

When I was in 5th grade, I was in a classroom that had bare wooden floors. Looking down at the floor one day, I noticed a little speck of something that was glistening in the sunlight. During recess I got down on the floor for a closer look and discovered that there was a fair amount of mercury lodged in the cracks between the floorboards. It was probably from a few broken fluorescent bulbs (there was lots more mercury in the tubes back then). Anyway I was able to use a pencil lead to pick up many small blobs of mercury from the floor, enough to make a dime-sized blob which I played with for awhile before discarding it. If something like that would've happened today, they would've evacuated the school, called the hazmat team, and the whole thing would've been on the evening news!

My point is that there's probably more mercury just layin' around in today's buildings than we want to know about. :green:


----------



## PhotonWrangler (Apr 29, 2007)

jtr1962 said:


> Since the mercury stays contained unless the tube breaks, why not make the tubes out of plastic instead of glass?



They could spray a plastic coating on the glass bulbs, similar to the rubbery "Tuff Skin" coating that's sprayed onto some rough-service bulbs.


----------



## jtr1962 (Apr 29, 2007)

PhotonWrangler said:


> They could spray a plastic coating on the glass bulbs, similar to the rubbery "Tuff Skin" coating that's sprayed onto some rough-service bulbs.


Exactly. If the skin is thick enough, it should be able to contain the broken glass and mercury entirely should the tube break (similar in principle to the way shatter-proof auto glass works). And the cost would only be pennies. Great idea. I like it! :twothumbs 

BTW, I also remember having fun with a blob of mercury as a kid. I think it was from a broken fever thermometer. No brain damage as a result. On second thought, maybe I did get brain damage-that would explain my abnormal obsession with light. :laughing:


----------



## 2xTrinity (Apr 29, 2007)

In my case, I've broken a couple CFLs before, but luckily only on hard surfaces -- I immediately swept up the glass, wiped down the whole area with moist paper towels, and dumped the fragments of glass, and towels, into a big plastic bag, which went into a box with other burned out CFLs, obsolete linear fluorescents etc. old paint, and all sorts of other various crap we brought to our local hazardous waste dump. IMHO it should simply be made clear to people that the bulbs that the most responsible thing to do isn't just to throw the CFLs in the trash, but store them and eventaully taken to a hazardous waste disposal.


----------



## yuandrew (Apr 29, 2007)

I broke a CFL a few months back and I didn't really have a special clean up procedure other than picking up broken glass and wiping down the area with wet sponges.

http://candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=145106

Now once at my high school, someone broke something containing mercury (thermometer ?). The room was immediately evacuated and sealed off with tape and plastic covering the cracks in the doors and window plus they had a haz-mat team in "safe suits" come to decontaminate the area.


----------



## The_LED_Museum (Apr 29, 2007)

When I was in 6th grade, I somehow got ahold of about an ounce of mercury (it may have been given to me by a school teacher!); the thing I noticed about it besides the fact that it was a liquid was that pungent odour it emitted; stronger as it was heated.
I have no idea about how it was disposed of, but I do remember there was no "hazmat" team involved.

I also got ahold of an approximately 1 pound nugget of antimony; another toxic metal. Again, I do not know how it was disposed of, other than the fact "hazmat" personnel were not involved.

In neither case was I poisoned - unless that was what started me in my life as a flashaholic. :laughing:


----------



## PhotonBoy (Apr 30, 2007)

http://www.dhs.ca.gov/ohb/HESIS/merc.htm

_"Elemental mercury is an unusual metal because it is a liquid rather than a solid, and *it slowly evaporates at room temperature*."_

I'm not a chemist, but I think that if there's a visible amount of spilled mercury, it will eventually evaporate and disappear. As long as there is sufficient ventilation, there shouldn't be a major problem with small amounts. Once evaporated, I'm sure it combines with other elements or atmospheric gases and eventually will find itself in the ocean where it will be significantly diluted and permanently harmless.


----------



## SoundMix (Apr 30, 2007)

PhotonBoy said:


> Once evaporated, I'm sure it combines with other elements or atmospheric gases and eventually will find itself in the ocean where it will be significantly diluted and permanently harmless.


 
Fish already has enough mercury contamination. Swordfish is barely edible.


----------



## mchlwise (Apr 30, 2007)

Just how much Mercury is in a typical CFL anyways? 

:candle:


----------



## TorchBoy (Apr 30, 2007)

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_fluorescent_lamp#Environmental_issues for info about how much mercury is supposed to be in CFLs - about 5mg per unit. The article also has a graph comparing mercury emissions from coal power stations over the life of a CFL and an incandescent bulb.


----------



## yuandrew (May 5, 2007)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5YIchGZnAA#GU5U2spHI_4

Well, I just received this comment on one of my youtube videos involving a compact fluorescent. V



> If I break a fluoresent bulb and I gotta call four government agencies They want you to have to call a bureaucracy every time you do anything, is where they're headed. So I the environmental clean up firm, "gave me a'low-ball' estimate of $2,000 to clean up the room. The room was then sealed-off with plastic I began 'gathering finances' to pay for the $2,000 cleaning. MY insurance company wouldn't cover the clean-up costs because mercury is a pollutant," and they don't insure pollutants


----------



## 2xTrinity (May 5, 2007)

> "Elemental mercury is an unusual metal because it is a liquid rather than a solid, and it slowly evaporates at room temperature."
> 
> I'm not a chemist, but I think that if there's a visible amount of spilled mercury, it will eventually evaporate and disappear. As long as there is sufficient ventilation, there shouldn't be a major problem with small amounts. Once evaporated, I'm sure it combines with other elements or atmospheric gases and eventually will find itself in the ocean where it will be significantly diluted and permanently harmless.


Most CFLs don't contain elemental (liquid) mercury. The mercury in a CFL (about 5mg) is actually stored as a SOLID mercury amalgam, meaning it won't evaporate at room temperature. That's the reason why the newest CFLs start off at partial brightness and have to take a couple minutes to heat up. Designing them that way allows less mercury to be used (to comply with environmental constraints), reduces blackening of the tubes/loss of efficiency (less mercury fuising with the glass and blocking light), and allows for more consistent light output at a braoder range of operating temperatures (once warmed up, the light will work better in cold, or hot, environments). 

The vapor is what is dangerous, solid mercury amalgam, or even liquid mercury is not much of a danger as the body won't assimilate it (there are people still alive with mercury amalgam dental fillings that contain significantly more mercury amalgam than a CFL) I've broken a CFL before (new, during installation) and there was no liquid mercury, just a couple of tiny silvery grains of amalgam. All of them were swept up with wet towels and disposed of in a big plastic bag. I let the room air out just to be cautious (it was not a carpeted room, either).

Either way though, in the case of the $2000 cleaning, that much of a contamination sounds much more severe than should be possible for a broken CFL. The EPA's website doesn't suggest anywhere near those kinds of actions on their site which specifically instructs how to clean up broken CFLs. If those readings were legitimate, I wouldn't be surprised if the room was actually contaminated in the past (say, a thermometer broken many years ago -- which contains about a thousand times the mercury of a CFL, and in liquid form). Either that or the family just got ripped off by the group doing the "cleanup".


----------



## brickbat (May 6, 2007)

2xTrinity said:


> ...Either that or the family just got ripped off by the group doing the "cleanup"....



If you read the news accounts carefully, you'll see that she has not paid anything to get the room cleaned up. She was given a $2000 estimate, but has not had the cleanup done...


----------



## hank (May 6, 2007)

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

Pharyngula: Compact Fluorescent Lights are gonna kill you … NOT.

Good discussion with links and explanations aplenty.


----------



## nonotmethanks (May 9, 2007)

I was just commenting on that Canada/CFL article a few days ago... mercury creates a lot of fear. The article was absurb but that is not to say mercury is completely benign either.

It is organic mercury - Methymercury that is the highly dangerous form - which is created sometimes by bacteria in water - usually near the bottom of bodies of water. After that I suppose mercury salts (such as those in batteries) are a concern.

Elemental mercury the body can expel over time - a mercury thermometer isn't going to harm you. 

If you want to be cautious after breaking a CFL (or thermometer) - DO NOT VACUUM - sweep it up. A vaccum will heat the mercury and then spray it out evaporated mercury through the exhaust and into your lungs as you breathe.

I frequented mercury mines and breathed quite a bit of the stuff in the past. Cinnabar is typically crushed and heated then the mercury vapor condensed. Other than fits of twitching and foaming at the mouth - hasn't harmed me a bit






http://www.emedicine.com/EMERG/topic813.htm

http://emsi-teacherworkshop.stanford.edu/pages/fieldtrip.html


----------



## Melchior (May 9, 2007)

*Simple solution*

I think simply purchasing the plastic covered variety of CFL if it seems likely that the bulb may get broken. (loss of light, but peace of mind, a good tradeoff)

The mercury amalgam stays semi-sealed in the plastic.

However if the CFL is RUNNING (fully heated elements) and is broken, what then?

At that point there is vaporised mercury escaping...


----------



## nonotmethanks (May 10, 2007)

*Re: Simple solution*

http://www.lrc.rpi.edu/programs/nlpip/lightingAnswers/HWCFL/HWCFL-thermal-performance1.asp

Some are amalgam, some are not. 

Either way - it is not at levels where I would be concerned. If we are going to be this worried then amalgam dental fillings should be replaced - but there is no good basis for that either.

Organic mercury is more of a danger - which is what can happen if mercury gets into water systems with bacteria.

I mentioned don't vacuum because the effect is like atomizing it - you'll spray it over over the room and onto everything. Of course you would have to be breaking a lot of bulbs to make it a real concern - but why even start? 

I was remembering someone that accidently vacumed after spilling about 8 ounces. Instant toxic zone and 2 weeks of clean up work. The body expels small amounts over a few weeks.


----------

