When the Australian Federal Govt in February this year announced the phasing out of incandescent light bulbs (ILB) in favour of Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFL’s), I thought back to our ex Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser and his decision (~1980 ?) to make imperial measuring tapes / rulers ILLEGAL after introducing metric measurements. Well, Malcolm’s Govt had to back down on that one and to this day we are free to buy measuring devices marked both metric and imperial.

This news item from Prospect, Maine USA relates how a resident was faced with costs of $2000 to cleanup Mercury released from a broken CFL.

Current affairs TV in Australia is now running stories pointing out the obvious facts that switching to CFL use will lead to increasing Mercury in our landfills. There must be more important things for our Government to have its attention on than forcing us to use light bulbs that many do not want.

A power saving is claimed from using a CFL compared to an ILB and CFL’s apparently last longer. We should be considering the higher cost of the CFL and its extra components plus the extra hours that have to be worked to buy the CFL. Higher costs and extra hours worked all add up to more environmental impacts increasing the true cost of CFL’s, which I have not seen calculated into cost comparisons.

I wonder if the CFL’s have real advantages in many home uses, the slow warm up time can make them unsuitable when you want quick light and many do not like the fluoro light. Some people are careful to turn lights (ILB) off when say leaving rooms, others are not. I wonder if a campaign to turn off unused lights and appliances could save more power than this ill researched decision to make ILB’s illegal. I wonder for example how much power is wasted boiling kettles that are filled too high for the drinks to be made. How much power is wasted by hot water heaters set too high, showers running too long, room heating set too high, aircon set too cool.

I suspect all these sort of power wasting habits would dwarf any advantage CFL’s might have over ILB’s. I have heard people say that they leave CFL’s on all the time because they use little power. So there could be a lot of confounding factors operating out here in the real world.

ellsworthmaine.com/site/index2.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7446&Itemid=31&pop=1&page=0

Written by Nick Gosling
Thursday, April 12, 2007
PROSPECT — It was just like any other Tuesday.

Prospect resident Brandy Bridges holds up a newspaper insert promoting the
type of CFL (compact fluorescent lamp) bulbs that she says have caused
elevated levels of mercury in her home when one broke last month.—STAFF
PHOTO BY NICK GOSLING

Prospect resident Brandy Bridges holds up a newspaper insert promoting the
type of CFL (compact fluorescent lamp) bulbs that she says have caused
elevated levels of mercury in her home when one broke last month.—STAFF
PHOTO BY NICK GOSLING

On March 13, Brandy Bridges was installing some of the two dozen CFL
(compact fluorescent lamp) bulbs she had purchased in an attempt to save
money on her energy bill.

One month later, though, Bridges is paying much more than she had ever
expected to.

On that Tuesday, Bridges was installing one of the spiral-shaped light bulbs
in her 7-year-old daughter’s bedroom. Suddenly, the bulb plummeted to the
floor, breaking on the shag carpet.

Bridges, who was wary of the dangers of cleaning up a fluorescent bulb,
called The Home Depot where she purchased them. She was told that the bulbs
had mercury in them and that she should not vacuum the area where the bulb
had broken. Bridges was directed to call the Poison Control hotline.

Poison Control directed her to the Maine Center for Disease Control and
Prevention and the Department of Environmental Protection.

Upon reaching the DEP the next day, the agency offered to send a specialist
out to Bridges’ house to test the air levels. The specialist arrived soon
after the phone conversation and began testing the downstairs, where he
found safe levels of mercury — below the state’s limit of 300 ng/m3
(nanograms per cubic meter).

In the daughter’s bedroom, the levels remained well below the 300 mark,
except for near the carpet where the bulb broke. There the mercury levels
spiked to 1,939 ng/m3. On a bag of toys that bulb fragments had landed on,
the levels of mercury were 556 ng/m3.

Bridges was told by the specialist not to clean up the bulb and mercury
powder by herself. He recommended the Clean Harbors Environmental Services
branch in Hampden.

Clean Harbors gave Bridges a low-ball estimate of $2,000, based on what she
described, to clean up the room properly. The work entailed removing
anything with levels greater than 300 ng/m3, including the carpeting.

One month later, Bridges’ daughter’s bedroom remains sealed off with plastic
“to avoid any dust blowing around” and to keep the family’s pets from going
in and out of the room.

Her daughter, Shayley, has to sleep downstairs in a full house that already
consists of Bridges’ fiancé, her 71-year-old mother and her handicapped
brother.

Today, Bridges is “gathering finances” to pay the $2,000 for the cleaning
herself. That won’t cover the cost for new carpeting and other items that
will have to be replaced. Her insurance company said it wouldn’t cover the
costs because mercury is considered a pollutant, like oil.

One month later, Bridges is still searching for answers. She has contacted
staff members from the offices of U.S. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and
Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) to tell them about her situation but has received no
response.

She has talked with representatives from the CDC and DEP and spent roughly
two to three hours a day over the past several weeks, talking on the phone
and in person and contacting local papers to get the word out on what she
believes are dangerous light bulbs.

And, she said, she is wondering why the DEP “publicly recanted the
statement” it made to an area newspaper, in which DEP officials said it was
safe to clean up the CFL bulbs using household materials.

“I’m really upset. They should not change their story just because it does
not fit into a good plan for these light bulbs,” said Bridges. “I’m trying
my best to keep my family safe and the state just keeps trying to cover it
up.”

Officials have said that Bridges has little to worry about and she could
easily clean up the bulbs by hand.

State Toxicologist Andrew Smith said it would be unlikely that a person
could contract mercury poisoning from the levels of mercury found in
Bridges’ daughter’s room.

“In this situation, my understanding, was this 1,900 was the sign reading
right at the spot of the floor where the bulb broke,” said Smith. “While
1,900 was certainly considered an elevated reading of mercury vapor, it was
a very localized level that I would not expect to result in any sign of
mercury exposure.”

Smith said mercury is only dangerous with long-term exposure and in this
case the person would have to stay right at the spot of the 1,900 reading or
there would have to be elevated levels of mercury vapor in the breathing
zone — about 3 feet — above the spill. Mercury also dissipates over time.

The air in the bedroom at the 3-foot level measured between 31 to 49 ng/m3
of mercury, depending on the location.

Smith said a CFL light bulb breaking is not in the same category as when a
mercury thermometer breaks.

A typical fluorescent bulb has between 1 and 25 milligrams of mercury with
the majority of smaller ones — the size of the bulb that Bridges broke —
having about 5 milligrams of mercury. This is about the amount of ink on the
tip of a pen.

A typical mercury thermometer has between 500 and 3,000 milligrams of
mercury, depending on its size. A mercury thermostat has even more.

“Often you will get high levels in the breathing zone area,” said Smith
about a broken thermometer. “High hundreds, if not thousands.”

Smith said Bridges’ call was the first of its kind he’s ever received. He’s
received plenty of calls about broken mercury thermometers, old barometers
that had broken, even a very old antique Civil War mirror that had a mercury
coating on the back.

Many of these situations have had enough mercury to result in “fairly
elevated levels in the home” and more care was needed for each situation.
But Bridges’ problem “is a whole different ballpark,” said Smith.

Scott Cowger, director of outreach and communications for the DEP, said the
DEP’s Web site (www.maine.gov/dep/) has guidelines for cleaning up a broken
fluorescent bulb.

Cowger said it is important to ventilate the area by opening windows and not
to vacuum the area of the broken bulb, which may spread the mercury. While
wearing appropriate safety gloves, glasses, coveralls or old clothing and a
dust mask, a person can remove the glass pieces and put them in a closed
container.

The dust can be cleaned up using either two pieces of stiff paper, a
disposal broom and dustpan or a commercial mercury spill kit. Afterward, the
area should be patted with the sticky side of tape, according to the DEP Web
site.

Cowger said all the items used in cleaning up the spill should be treated as
“universal waste” or a household hazardous waste that can be disposed of
without hiring professionals. He said that almost every town has a program
for recycling or removing universal waste, which includes computers,
electronic devices and fluorescent bulbs, at the transfer station.

“We encourage people not to panic if they break a lightbulb,” said Cowger.

Cowger said the instructions on the Web site are the same for if a mercury
thermometer breaks. If a person breaks anything bigger than a thermometer,
for example a thermostat, Cowger recommends calling a professional to clean
up the spill.

The DEP spokesman said, though, it “isn’t necessary to hire professionals at
all” for a light bulb. The specialist who responded to Bridges’ broken bulb
was trained to respond to chemical spills and to clean up such spills to
“appropriate standards.”

As for the dangers of CFL bulbs, Cowger said they are more help than
hindrance.

For every CFL bulb a person uses, he or she is preventing mercury emissions
and using less energy, said Cowger, but it is still important to educate
people that these bulbs do contain a small amount of mercury.

“We’re doing our part and I think using fluorescent bulbs helps reduce that
overall mercury burden on the environment, so people shouldn’t be afraid of
them, by any means,” he said. “They should be proud to burn those bulbs as a
way of lowering our entire mercury burden.”

To Bridges, the DEP’s suggestions for cleaning her rug seem “ridiculous.”

“I don’t think it’s possible to safely clean mercury out of a shag rug with
duct tape and paper … I believe their first notion to have it cleaned
professionally was correct. They told me to do it this way. Why would they
change their stories when the papers got a hold of them?”

Maine’s Public Utilities Commission is rigorously promoting the use of CFL
bulbs, as a replacement to incandescent bulbs, through government incentives
for both businesses and household consumers.

Nicole Clegg, director of communication for the PUC, said through the
Efficiency Maine program, which offers coupons to consumers buying CFLs,
over 1 million bulbs have been purchased since the program began in 2002.

Clegg said that number works out to about $46 million in saved energy costs
and 194,000 tons of carbon dioxide that has not been pumped into the
atmosphere because of the reduced electricity use.

The director said that a CFL uses 50 percent to 80 percent less energy than
a traditional incandescent bulb, lasts 10 times longer and is four times as
efficient. The incandescent bulb was patented in 1880, so it’s little wonder
the technology has gotten better, she said.

“Our goal is to reduce energy or to keep the state of Maine’s energy
consumption flat. One of the most cost effective ways is to promote these
lights,” Clegg said.

Clegg said that people need to understand that using CFLs keeps more mercury
out of the atmosphere and the environment than a normal incandescent bulb.
And, if properly cared for, the bulbs “shouldn’t have immediate health
risks.”

“If you have concerns about your electricity bill or the environment,
changing your light bulb to a CFL is the simplest, easiest thing you can
do,” said Clegg.

Bridges still isn’t convinced. She’s worried about her daughter staying in
the same house for the next 11 years, potentially having long-term exposure
to mercury. She’s worried about the rest of her family’s health.

And she’s worried about “the state downplaying the threat of mercury and not
letting people know the dangers coming from one bulb” and “telling everybody
to clean it up themselves.”

“I think they are putting people’s safety and health at risk because they
know what the financial repercussions are going to be for the consumer,”
said Bridges.

For information on cleaning up a broken CFL, go to www.maine.gov/dep/.