It's an 18" one from the kitchen. Never had one before, so I don't know whether it goes into landfil, recycling or whatever. Surely I won't have to make a 28 miles round trip to the council tip? It'd work out cheaper to mail it to them.
Is there not a returns policy, like now for batteries?
MM
Can you not just keep it in the box the new one came out of and save it for when you DO need to go to the tip? It's only an 18" one after all.
Pete
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I *hardly ever* go to the tip! I never normally need to. Been maybe once in five years. I wouldn't mind if it was just down the road, but it isn't. It's miles away. I rarely use my car nowadays, but use my bus pass instead. No buses pass the waste tip, though. I want to do the 'right thing', but the council makes no provision at all for people like me. No wonder there's such a lot of fly tipping.
MM
ask/complain to the council not us?
AFAIK council tips dont recycle them, just bin it. Or make a ballast that will run them when the filaments are gone, and if its a triphosphor rather than a halphosphate, use it for ever more. (Halophosphors lose too much efficiency over time.)
NT
ours do - special container etc
Or make a ballast
mmm sounds non-trivial?
Jim K
Try
Adam
Well if the council can't/won't provide a suitable means of disposal then I reckon you're morally justified in putting it in the bin. It probably causes less pollution than the 28 mile drive but I don't know where you stand legally, but who's going to know.
I tried that. But when I took 5 years of domestic electrical rubbish (computers, TV's etc) to the dump, after a long time queueing, I was given a grilling as to whether it was commercial.
In future I won't risk being refused, I'll just chuck it in the household rubbish.
There's supposed to be. As far as I know, it only works with people who have 25 or more tubes to return, i.e. industrial customers. There was no provision for them at my local tip when I last visited (a year or so back).
Given how short the world is becoming of the rare earths used to make the modern phosphors, it does seem criminal to throw them out. (OTOH, I'm not sure if they can be recycled and reused, as they significantly degrade by the time the tube dies.)
Just because there is a special container doesn't mean they are recycled.
Are they dismantled into the component parts, glass, metal, mercury, phosphors, etc separated out, recovered and reused or just taken to a toxic waste landfill site.
For longer tubes:
Tip's only 6.5 miles away, but a 6' tube on the back o' me bike...
Easiest with long tubes:
1 Put in packaging of old tube. 2 Seal ends with plastic bag. 3 place one end on ground and leave go. 4 fold packaging and put in bin.
We're not short of "rare earths", it's just that very few people can be bothered to dig them up:
Sounds a bit like the recycling scheme round here. The council provide clear bags, and you can get more if you use a lot.
This was too successful (and allegedly millions of bags were being 'misused') so now we get 51 bags a year. If we fill in a form we can get a few more. If we want any more, they send someone round to 'educate' us.
Guess where all the excess recycling is going? That's right, landfill. Even the tip doesn't have a place for that sort of recycling. And don't get me started on driving miles to get rid of fluorescent tubes.
Yes, you...Canterbury City Council!
But you can see from the more irresponsible range of replies that not many agree with you and me that there ought to be a proper disposal policy that is easily accessible.
Of course it's dead easy simply to throw the tube in the bin, and I expect ARWadsworth and others are extremely proud of their very clever suggestions, but these tubes are supposedly very dangerous (contain dangerous materials) and therefore should be disposed of safely. The program for recycling batteries is obviously working as I have seen some very full containers in Tesco and other supermarkets.
MM
Takes some electronics skills - and more importantly time. High frequency can be coupled into the tube capacitively the same way CCFLs are driven, so its possible to use a CCFL ballast from laptop, LCD scanner etc.
NT
fwiw its possible to reuse the phosphors yourself, not too many of us into doing that sort of thing though.
NT
What does disposing of safely mean? I'd advocate dumping it in a deep-sea trench (30,000 ft deep or more) where it'll all be subducted into the earth'c crust.
wouldn't it just float back up?
Jim K
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