CFL Disposal Solved...

[Rod]

Totally embarrassing posting a link to 'popsci', but needs must (I couldn't find the story elsewhere):

"Compact fluorescent light bulbs solve one problem, but present another: Although the bulbs are longer-lasting and more energy efficient than incandescent bulbs, CFLs contain mercury, a neurotoxin. If a bulb breaks or isn?t recycled properly, the mercury can be released into the environment.

But researchers at Brown University are working to solve that problem with the creation of a new selenium-based material that can absorb mercury spills. The team tested several different materials for absorbing mercury, including selenium, zinc and carbon. Selenium seemed promising, but the team hypothesized that a protein stabilizer in its nano-structure might be blocking mercury absorption. The protein stabilizer was removed, which created an un-stabilized nano-selenium. According to the research, in a confined space, 10 mg of nano-selenium can absorb 99 percent of mercury vapor contained in a CFL within 24 hours.

Although the research may provide a solution for cleaning up large mercury spills, it may also provide a simple solution to keeping mercury from fluorescent bulbs out of the environment. About 700 million light bulbs containing mercury are discarded every year, with only 24 percent being recycled, according to the Association of Lighting and Mercury Recyclers. Although people are encouraged to keep CFLs out of the waste stream, few states have a curbside recycling service for the bulbs, so disposal requires taking the bulbs to a designated recycling site.

However, if recycle boxes or disposal bags lined with nano-selenium can be produced, then people can simply put a broken or burned out bulb into the box or bag, and be done with it. Wouldn?t that be great?"

So now all we need are:

o A 'free bag with every CFL' scheme;

o A mechanism for putting a just-about-to-break CFL into the bag - perhaps snatching it out of the air a few cm above the concrete floor?;

o Press releases "Nano-selenium is perfectly safe when handled sensibly.";

o Warning notices 'This contains mercury-contaminated nano-selenium. Do not touch. Wash hands after contact.';

o A sensible means of disposing of bags containing nano-selenium - as well as the usual mercury, various phosphors, electronic components, glass, plastic...

Ah, progress... :-)

[Lobster]

I suppose it could work with the same effectiveness as my local council's efforts at recycling textiles: if we have any old clothes to chuck out, they need to go in a dedicated bag by the kerbside on the designated day; use anything other than the correct bag and it will be ignored even if clearly labelled. However, if you do leave a bag out and it's collected, they don't replace the bag; presumably as unlike newspapers and cardboard, people don't tend to chuck out textiles regularly. So if you ever do have an old jumper to get rid if, you need to phone the council in advance of collction day and they will mail you a bag through the post.

(Obvious result is that round here now nobody at all bothers with recycling textiles).

David

[Rod]

We get a bag almost every day - from one set of so-called charity collectors to another via a couple of admitted commercial mobs. (Romanian Orphans? The Aged? Who knows?) Our current problem is disposing of the clothing recycling bag mountain... :-)

Council does now have clothing bins at the local recycling points. But they have lots of restrictions - and *no* bags from them.

[Andy Hall]

These organisations are a joke. I have two black plastic rectangular boxes which are supposed to be used for recycling of various things. Having received quite a few shipments in cardboard boxes in the past week and feeling just very slightly public spirited, I collapsed said boxes flat, put them in the plastic boxes and put the lot out with the dustbins. A truck collecting cardboard etc. comes shortly after the main collection.

The boxes were not emptied. So I called them. The reply was that they won't take cardboard that comes over the rim of the box.

Me: "Why?"

They: "Don't know"

Me: "Please ask departmental head to call me"

DH: "It's not our policy"

(that was the best answer I got - he didn't know but thought that perhaps it could be that boxes could become too heavy for the operatives if the box contained paper).

DH: "Could you cut up the boxes into smaller pieces and place them flat in the boxes?"

Me: "No could you? What's the alternative?"

DH: "Bundle up the cardboard, tie it and put it out next week"

Me: "It's green stuff next week"

DH: "OK, week after"

Me: "Will it go for recycling?"

DH: "No it has to fit in the boxes for that, bundles just go in with the general rubbish. Could you not cut up the cardboard?"

Me: "No"

So no more recycling. At all, apart from some green stuff when it suits me. Light bulbs, tubes, cardboard, plastic the lot all go in the main bins from now on. Anything larger goes in a bundle and they can do what they like with it. I've given them two weeks to collect their recycling boxes because they are effectively useless and taking up space.

[Spamlet]

"Nano-selenium is perfectly safe when handled sensibly.";

Could just as easily have written: "Mercury is..."

In my day, selenium and mercury were both nasties.

Who ever heard of jo public every handling anything sensibly?!

S

[Rod]

Also, a strange bedfellow, but found this press release this mornign as well:

Enriching crops could boost our immune system

Recent trials, led by The University of Nottingham, have shown that applying just a few grams of selenium to crops at the right time - via selenium enriched fertiliser - it is possible to produce bread that could restore the average dietary selenium intakes to recommended levels.

(Media-Newswire.com) - Selenium is an essential element for human health but intakes in the UK have fallen by almost a half over the past 30 years.

Perhaps they ought to get together... ? :-)

[Spamlet]

Hi Rod, How's the rhubarb?

Serendipitously, I have not long finished reading Graham Harvey ('The Archers' farming adviser)'s latest book which is largely about this very subject.

actually looked forward to getting this book as I had been very impressed with Harvey's well researched and scholarly previous books. I was very disappointed!

Looking at the Amazon 5* rating is quite a shock! Whereas the earlier works were lengthy volumes in small type and full of good references, this work is in large type and reads exactly like the advertorial one sees in quack 'health and nutrition' magazines. There were nuggets of actual verifiable science in amongst the 'nutrispeak', but it was a painful experience teasing it out. It is hard for me to believe that it was Harvey that wrote it. I tried to start up a dialogue about it on Harvey's site, but he does not seem to respond to comment or visit the site himself.

Anyhow, all that aside, trace elements are no doubt important, and there is logic in the idea that deficiency in the soil will lead to deficiency in what is grown therein. As indeed, is there truth in the bioremediation by plants of soils that have gone to the other extreme as a result of muck spreading with metal contaminated muck...

Swigs and roundabouts. Shame about the quacks.

S

[ARWadworth]

Like the time they would not empty the cardboard bin at my friends house as some of the cardboard in the bin was too thick - a card was pushed through his letter box explaining why the bin was not emptied. A phone call to the council resulted in my friend asking "is the card you pushed through my letter box too thick to go into the cardboard bin, and why did you not post a card made to the maximum thickness allowed so I will not make the same mistake again?". Four months later we still only know that "thin" cardboard is allowed in the bin and not the maximum thickness.

Adam

[Rod]

All too true. The term 'Derbyshire neck' had almost been relegated to the history books - at least for reasons of selenium deficiency.

Haven't listened to The Archers (properly) for a long time. Trying to remember the old ag. story ed. - think he lived somewhere near the Long Mynd.

IIRC British Geological Survey did a pretty good job on Selenium and Iodine in China. And things ain't as simple as they looked.

[Andrew Gabriel]

I remember burning out a selenium rectifier as a teenager. Not something I, or anyone else in the house, is likely to forget. Amazing the stench that could come from such a tiny device.

[Andy Hall]

Were you sick?

I was.

[Andrew Gabriel]

No, but we did have to run for the door quite fast.

[Huge]

Still are. I used to work in the building next to a selenium recovery plant. If you could smell it, there was too much. And Se *stinks*.

[Arfa Daily]

I've had similar conversations with my local refuse disposal department when they refused to take a refuse sack that was neatly tied, and left on top of the bin. So I told the officious little git that I was just going to leave it where the bin men had chucked it on the path (they might just as well have slung it in the back of the cart whilst it was already in their hand) and that I didn't care if the foxes or cats or rats or whatever, tore it open and scattered its contents. So he then calmly stated that if I did that, I would be guilty of fly tipping, and he would have me prosecuted for it. Just goes to show what a load of crap all of this eco-bollox and health and safety legislation is ...

Arfa

[Andy Hall]

This was why I asked the question why. There had been an issue with the operatives in terms of insisting on collection at the road end vs. the house end of the drive as they always had. Initially there was an Elfinsayftee response, so I questioned them some more in terms of why it had suddenly become one. Then the story became that there was the issue of liability if they came onto the property. Crap. They can insure for that and must have done so in the past. Finally, I asked the collection company and they told me that that is what the local authority had agreed in the SLA and that it was an issue of time taken - i.e. walk up every drive or not. At least the truth at last. I confronted the local authority with it and finally the guy admitted that this was the case.

What annoyed me the most was being told lies by a supplier (that is effectively what they are). A junior person at the council may not reasonably have known that, but the head of department certainly did.

If there is some specific EU legislation around a particular piece of recycling methodology, they could easily state that and I can check. However, it does seem that the LAs ar dreaming up their own rules as they go along.

I'm fortunate to have quite a responsive councillor, and while this is nowhere close to being a marginal seat, she is quite responsive, even to issues like this so I wrote to her. Issues are on the agenda for the next relevant council committee meeting and said head of department has been invited to attend and explain what he has done. It will be interesting

[Rod]

The differences between councils often appear capricious. If we have excess cardboard, we have been told simply to put it next to the box. It always gets taken. (In fact, you can put it out without the box at all. :-) )

I keep reading of things that sound odd to me. But I guess if I explained our system it would sound odd to everyone else.

I actually feel some sympathy for anyone coming into temporary contact with a different system - maybe in a holiday home, or renting a house for a while, or even simply newly moved to an area - understanding the rules as well as the actual custom and practise is yet another burden.

[sm_jamieson]

You should have slung it in the cart yourself before the had time to stop you. But if you missed I'd look at bit crap ! Or run down the road a bit and put it in someone elses bin that had some space in it just before they bin men got there. If the bin man then dropped it back on the path by your house, he would be guiltly of fly tipping and you could have him prosecuted ! Depends on if you feel like taking on 5 hefty bin men ! Simon.

[Derek Geldard]

It's been solved around here. The council just provide a bin from one of the fluorescent tube recycling services at the local tip and you go and chuck the tubes in.

It takes the form of a rectangular prism about 3m x 1m x 1m with a capacity of about 1,000 tubes, closed at the top but permanently open at one end right down to ground level.

Builders etc chuck fittings in complete which smashes the tubes already in there and the mercury and phosphors are free to escape.

So that's alright then at least individual tubes are not going into landfill.

Derek