How should I dispose of a fluorescent tube?

[Tim Streater]

What, the tubes you mean?

[Jim K]

what else is this thread about?

Jim K

[John Rumm]

The point that you seem to be missing, is that in spite of many elaborate council recycling schemes, these things (and CFLs) seem to have fallen through the net in many cases. If there is no official method of disposal, or the official way is environmentally more harmful than simply binning it, what do you propose people do? Adopting the moral high ground is fine if you also have a viable solution to the problem that you can share.

[Terry Casey]

The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (Amendment)Regulations

2009 came into force on 1st January this year. See:

"If you provide new EEE directly to household users/consumers you will be a distributor, and must provide facilities to your customers to return old equipment free of charge."

This places the responsibility fairly and squarely on the vendor, so take the old one back to them - and don't accept "No" for an answer ...

[Andrew Gabriel]

Drop into empty bin so it lands on the end. If you get it right, it all just piles down crumpling under its own weight, until there's only about 12" left.

You'll be lucky. I've even stood on one without it breaking (the glass tube is semi-toughened on the outside only, just like ordinary light bulbs).

[ARWadsworth]

Do tubes harden with age;-) In my experience it is much easier to break the new tube you are installing than the old one that you have taken out.

Adam

[Andrew Gabriel]

So, that would just be Sods law at play...

They are remarkably strong when you consider the glass is only something like half a mm think.

Likewise for GLS bulbs. Indeed, when they're made, and before the inards and lamp cap are fitted, you can drop them onto a smooth concrete floor and they bounce like ping-pong balls.

[MM]

I need to have the solution *before* asking the question? That sounds like the Irishman's "If I were you, I wouldn't start from here" response.

MM

[MM]

Ah, now this sensible advice. The vendor in this case was the local hardware store. So should they accept the old one? (They didn't mention at all the subject of disposal at the time of purchase.)

MM

[Tim Streater]

Threads vary, you know. A small amount of suitable packaging will take them towards Davy Jones locker, and water pressure will do the rest after a few hundred feet.

[The Medway Handyman]

You can dump then at our local tip, special bin. Not sure if they recycle them.

At the local Uni they had a large plastic container for tubes. When full a contractor collected it & left an empty one, cost £168 + VAT.

Apparently as a business I could be fined up to £3K for transporting them without a hazardous waster transfer licence.

[Mungo "Two Sheds" Toadfoot]

My son was fined £50 by them recently for leaving his rubbish bags on the street on collection day. He didn't; the pre-collectors dragged them out of the underground car park bins and left them on the street to be collected while he was at work. They were left on the street and son wasn't able to persuade the council that he was telling the truth because the council asked the collectors and they said it wasn't them!

Si

[ARWadsworth]

I am not taking the piss. Put it in the bin.

Adam

[Jim K]

small claims fast track online thingy - gotta be worth a go shurely?

Jim K

[Tim Streater]

You can get more by going to the Council office on Military Way and asking for them, like we did on day two of having moved here. I ended up with two complete rolls. After six months we are still only just starting roll 2.

How do you know this?

[Alan]

In message , Tim Streater wrote

Just shove them down an oil pipe to stop it leaking :)

[Bob Eager]

I'd have let them take me to court.

Canterbury City Council also fined a woman £120 when one of her recycling bags blew down the road in heavy winds on collection day. They opened it and got her address. I never put anything in those bags that can identify me.

[Bob Eager]

The whole point is that this has stopped as from June 1. They are not handing out any more rolls, at Military Road or anywhere else.

We generate a lot of recycling. Probably 4 bags a week.

What, that's it's going in landfill? Because that's where I'm putting it...sorry if that wasn't clear. I suspect I'm not the only one. Others may also be fly tipping.

[Tim Streater]

Who's your City councillor? And have you spoken to them?

How do you manage that? There's two of us and we do about one a week.

[Andy Burns]

Did he *pay* the fine?