About the new energy-saving light bulbs

[Goedjn]

Speaking of hysteria...

[Dave Martindale]

The powder in the bulbs is the phosphor. There is mercury, but it should be in tiny little drops of liquid mercury. There's so little you might not be able to see it at all (~4 mg).

Where do you get this information from?

Dave

[aspasia]

Here's a message somebody posted a way back, giving a link to comparison study of CFL bulbs.

++++++++++++++++++++++++

[...]

Thanks a bunch for pointing to this rating comparison. Very useful. I will replace some of my dim-bulb cheapies with good bulbs.

Aspasia

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[Don Klipstein]

The powder is not mercury. The mercury is something else, in quantities small enough for disposal by homeowners into regular household trash to be perfectly legal in most jurisdictions. (However, using info from

is preferred.)

- Don Klipstein ( [e-mail])

[jiml]

Bottom line, when they break, toss them in the trash and wash your hands.

[intrepid_dw]

An incident talking about CF breakage can be found here:

Not hysteria. It's actually happened.

-intrepid

[Charlie Morgan]

Sure sounds like hysteria to me!

CWM

[Paul M. Eldridge]

Here are the instructions for the safe clean-up and disposal of broken fluorescent lamps, as provided by the U.S. DOE, NEMA, GE and Clean Nova Scotia:

"Because there is such a small amount of mercury in CFLs, your greatest risk if a bulb breaks is getting cut from glass shards. Research indicates that there is no immediate health risk to you or your family should a bulb break and it?s cleaned up properly. You can minimize any risks by following these proper clean-up and disposal guidelines:

• Sweep up - don?t vacuum - all of the glass fragments and fine particles.

• Place broken pieces in a sealed plastic bag and wipe the area with a damp paper towel to pick up any stray shards of glass or fine particles. Put the used towel in the plastic bag as well.

• If weather permits, open windows to allow the room to ventilate.

Source:

"Safe cleanup precautions: If a CFL breaks in your home, open nearby windows to disperse any vapor that may escape, carefully sweep up the fragments (do not use your hands) and wipe the area with a disposable paper towel to remove all glass fragments. Do not use a vacuum. Place all fragments in a sealed plastic bag and follow disposal instructions above."

Source:

"Fluorescent lamps contain mercury. Mercury at atmospheric pressure is a silver colored liquid that tends to form balls. Mercury is a hazardous substance. When one lamp is broken, the best thing to do is to wear chemical resistant glove to clean it up. The gloves can be vinyl, rubber, PVC, or neoprene. The gloves you buy in the supermarket for household cleaning are sufficient. The gloves protect your skin from absorbing mercury and from getting cut by the glass. The remains of one lamp can be disposed as normal waste since the amount of mercury is small. However, for future reference, when large quantities of lamps are being disposed you must follow your state and the federal regulation for disposing of mercury-containing lamps."

Source:

"In the unlikely event your bulb breaks, be certain to sweep up - don't vacuum - all of the glass fragments and phosphor powder. Place the broken pieces in a plastic bag and wipe the area with a damp paper towel to pick up any stray shards of glass or fine particles. Put the used towel in the plastic bag as well. Like paint, batteries, thermostats and other hazardous household items, CFLs should be disposed of properly. Check with your municipal waste management program for proper disposal. If none exist, place in regular waste container. It is good practice to always clean up any products containing mercury with care and common sense."

Source:

Cheers, Paul

[Goedjn]

Hysteria. THe homeowner decided there should be a problem, and kept trying until she managed to create one.

[Don Klipstein]

1. The phosphor in "regular" fluorescents has changed. It was something really nasty way back when, maybe the 1950's. But at since at least the

1970's they used something else known as halophosphate for the "old tech" (my words) phosphor.

1. CFLs (with few exceptions that include most dollar store ones) contain something even different, known as triphosphor, and as I understand it that was first used in the 1970's with halophosphate being in wide use by then.

- Don Klipstein ( [e-mail])

[clifto]

In a saner time years back, I broke a real thermometer with real mercury in it; I could see it bead up on the floor. Remembering that someone told me it was toxic, I called a poison control center for instructions. The person on the other end acted like I was crazy to waste her time; she told me to pick it up any way possible without a lot of skin contact, and implied that I should quit bothering her with nonsense.

[mm]

I've told this story before, but when my upstairs neighbor swallowed bleach, I looked in my two first aid booklets' poison section and found nothing, and called the poison control center, and her book didn't say anything either. She asked a doctor who said no problem. I guess I had told them that she hadn't swallowed much of it, but years later I found out that bleach is a posion of some sort if you swallow maybe a cup.

I wonder how big a city one has to live in to keep one person in the poison control center busy for 80% of an 8 hours shift.

[yourname]

what a bunch of crap

Moron woman with no common sense asks a gov't plebe with no common sense and this is the answer

I have lost all respect for Radley Balko for publishing this crap

[Goedjn]

Bleach is not a poison, it's a caustic agent. (Stomach acid is mostly HCl, just in fairly dilute form) The accidental ingestion rules should be on the bottle, and IIRC, are to drink water and/or milk, in order to dilute the acid to a level your stomach can cope with.

[mm]

I did call it a poison so you were right to correct me.

I should have called a caustic agent control center. :)

This was 25 years ago, and I don't think there were any remedied listed, but in addition, they didn't have the bottle. One roommate poured the bleach into a plastic or cardboard milk carton, the second roommmate came home and found the "milk" on the table so she put it in the refrigerator, and the third girl took it out of the fridge and drank some. Then she came downstairs to see me.

[Paul MR]

My seventh grade science teacher (back in 1956) made a game whereby we were supposed to pass a glob of mercury hand to hand to see if it could get around the class without dropping. We all survived, AFAIK. At least, speaking for myself, my forked tail is not too uncomfortable when I'm seated, and my horn hides nicely under my baseball cap.

Paul in San Francisco

[Don Klipstein]

Bleach is not an acid - its main non-water ingredient is sodium hypochlorite, which is caustic because it is an oxidizing agent.

- Don Klipstein ( [e-mail])

[Goedjn]

Right... I got that mixed up with my "why muriatic acid isn't all that dangerous" rant. Someday I will learn to read what I write before hitting send.