Cleaning Up a Broken CFL

[BurfordTJustice]

Never ever will there be one in my house, work place etc. the enviro wackos can have them

[philoÂÂ]

That was part of the reason I was against them but decided to go with them any way for several reasons.

1) I have /never/ broken one.

2) I have broken a few of those fluorescent tubes and have been using them for over 40 years. Back then no one knew of all the hazards and we all seemed to keep on living somehow. One of those tubes sure can produce a lot more pollution than those CFLs

Anyone my age probably played with mercury with our hands when we were kids and exposed ourselves to more mercury than one of those CFL's

That said I am not sure if I'd use one in an area where food is prepared.

[Mayayana]

| Never ever will there be one in my house, work place etc. | the enviro wackos can have them

I don't think it was "enviro wackos" who pushed CFL. It was just fuzzy thinking and irrrational obsession with reducing wattage. (Why is there no campaign to make people mindful about the waste of leaving lights on unnecessarily?)

In addition to containing mercury and throwing an ugly light, CFLs are designed to be left on, used for things like outdoor night lighting. They burn out faster when switched on and off.

I've had a repeated experience that leads me to think people are using CFLs simply because most people don't think things through: I work on a customer's house and have occasion to deal with lights. I ask why they have CFLs in their dimmer-equipped recessed lights. On several occasions I've got the same answer. They say that the electric company came by for an "energy audit" and replaced all of their bulbs, leaving them with a pile of CFLs. The customer didn't bother to think about what they were allowing to be done. They got a bunch of free bulbs and the electric company people seemed to know what they were talking about. They've been led to believe that CFLs are the future and that incandescents are no longer available. (I'm curious how all this money ended up being wasted through electric companies. I'm guessing they're burning through huge "energy efficiency" federal grants paid for by taxpayers. And how did the federal grants happen? No doubt a handful of enterprising congressmen, friends of utility companies, who saw a chance to send a payout to their friends while appearing to be "cutting edge" thinkers "preparing for the future". :)

I was buying up incandescents for *very* cheap at Home Depot before they phased out. There were few other people grabbing them. Most apparently thought they no longer existed. Recently I needed to find a replacement for 100w work lights and found a very nice solution: There are now bulbs that look like incandescent and fit like incandescent, but with a small halogen bulb inside instead of a filament. 70w is supposed to be equivalent to 100w incandescent. It's an attractive light, reasonably priced, and works in existing clamp lights. (I can still buy 150w and 300w incandescent bulbs, but they've become absurdly expensive.)

[Dan.Espen]

Me either. And I wouldn't panic if I did. Really small amount of mercury in there.

Yep, remember the mercury disappearing as I watched.

You don't need to eat mercury to absorb it. Lots of times, the people all worked up about CFLs are strongly in favor of burning coal. Burning coal puts mercury in the air.

[Stormin Mormon]

I dropped one at my parents bathroom, last year. I was going to the cellar for the dust pan and broom, but Mom got there before me -- with the vacuum cleaner. Dad and I joked about we're all going to die of mercury.

[dgk]

I love my CFLs. They clearly are far more efficient and you choose the type for the purpose. Home Despot has a nice demo area where the different kinds (daylight, cool white, etc) are housed and you can see what kind you want.

I didn't think they would last as long as advertised though, and when I put one in a ceiling fan fixture I wrote the day and the supposed life span. I replaced it sometime in February of 2014 and noticed what I had written. It was installed on 1/12/2002, and was supposed to last five years. It did way better than five years, and wasn't even supposed to go in a ceiling fan fixture because the vibration isn't good for a bulb.

But I did just buy the 16 pack of 60 watt incandescents at Home Despot for something like $4. I have several fixtures that just won't work correctly with the CFLs so I have to use the incancescents.

I haven't broken a CFL yet, but as a kid I also played with the mercury from broken thermometers and am still here, so I'm not terribly worried. I do return the dead ones to the recycle boxes in the stores.

[Mayayana]

| I didn't think they would last as long as advertised though, and when | I put one in a ceiling fan fixture I wrote the day and the supposed | life span. I replaced it sometime in February of 2014 and noticed what | I had written. It was installed on 1/12/2002, and was supposed to last | five years. It did way better than five years, and wasn't even | supposed to go in a ceiling fan fixture because the vibration isn't | good for a bulb. |

I've never used them, but in talking to people who do I find that short life is the most common complaint. They seem to be variable.

| I haven't broken a CFL yet, but as a kid I also played with the | mercury from broken thermometers and am still here, so I'm not | terribly worried.

I used to have a sizable chemistry lab myself. I also used to ride my bike behind the DDT mosquito spray truck because the cloud was fun. The fact that "I'm still here" doesn't make mercury or DDT safe. Over the years the concern about mercury has increased. I read awhile back that there's no longer any level considered safe for children to be exposed to. With CFLs it just seems such a shame because the toxicity was entirely avoidable. But economics always wins out over common sense.

[philoÂÂ]

I have a 19th century house that has a number of enclosed glass antique globes and for fear of heat damage limited the bulbs to 60 watts. I hated the very dim light though.

I deiced to try CFL's that were 100 watt equivalent (I think 23 actual watts) When I first turned them on I thought they were even worse then the original 60 watt bulbs but after a short time they "warmed up" and gave excellent light...much better than the 60 watt incandescent.

[Dan.Espen]

Yep, you have to be wacko to want to pay less for your electricity and change your bulbs less often...

Uh, there is a campaign like that. Besides turning off lights when you don't need them is just common sense. Do you need the government to spend money to tell you that?

No they don't.

As I've recounted here before, my driveway lamp accepts 3 small base lights. The lights go on when it gets dark, goes off when the sun comes up. For years I had to replace all 3 after an average of a year. That's one incandescent going bad every 4 months.

I replaced the incandescents with CFLs years ago. At least 5 years ago, maybe more. They all still operate.

That's at least 5 years vs. 4 months, bulb turned off every day.

CFLs in dimmers aren't ideal, but they work. I've seen them.

Halogen bulbs have a filament:

A halogen lamp, also known as a tungsten halogen, quartz-halogen or quartz iodine lamp, is an incandescent lamp that has a small amount of a halogen such as iodine or bromine added.

Conserving electricity is part of a rational national security policy. By using less electricity, we are less dependent on foreign sources of oil.

Everywhere I've used CFLs I get better light.

The drawback to Halogen is the heat.

[BurfordTJustice]

I have incandescents here that have been working for over 20 years and never have had a failure of any kind.

CFLs rank right there with man made global warming.

[Dan.Espen]

CFLs without mercury?

Mercury is an essential element in the operation of fluorescent lighting; it allows the bulbs to be an efficient light source.

If you're really worried:

ArmorLite: A CFL Bulb Without The Risk of Toxic Mercury Exposure

[BenignBodger]

For the record, halogen bulbs _are_ incandescent. i.e. they heat a resistive filament with electrical current causing it to glow. They simply change the materials and design a bit to survive operating at a higher temperature where 'normal' incandescent bulbs would rapidly fail.

[philoÂÂ]

other than the filament of course,,,but that's just minor

[micky]

I did. My father was a dentist and he brought home some of it for me to play with. Some of it got absorbed into my skin, maybe, or stuck in my fingerprints and washed off, but not too much, and I never did make a swtich or anything with it, so 60 years later, I still have most of it.

2 or 3 thimbles full.

What can I do with it that would be fun or useful?

And should I see a plastic surgeon or a regular surgeon to get my sixth finger cut off? It started growing when I got the mercury but now it gets in the way.

[micky]

Not sure when you did this, but newer ones, the cheapest ones HD has, warm up almost immediately. I still have some older ones. You could move the ones you have to places where warm-up time matters less.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Now you're being silly. you need it. We used to make pennies into dimes by rubbing them with mercury. That is what the sixth finger is for, keeps the rest of them clean.

Mukry didnt hert my brane either.

[BurfordTJustice]

other than the filament of course,,,but that's just minor

[philoÂÂ]

Yes. I do have a few different types and the warmup time is fine.

I just did not know about it when I first started using them.

[philoÂÂ]

None repeat NONE have ever failed.

Nothing like running them on 80 volts, nice warm , orange glow...and the bulbs last for years

[Stormin Mormon]

Probably a felony to posess. And Obama care will pay for whatever need to get cut off.