Australia phasing out incandescent light bulbs
July 5th, 2009 by Warwick HughesPolicy originating in early 2007, near the end of the Howard years, by the then Environment Minister – Malcolm Turnbull, will phase out ordinary incandescent light bulbs in favour of the mercury polluting, dim, prone-to-explode, complex fluoro things costing ~10 x as much – by Oct or Nov 2009. Most A.C.T. shops are out of the old bulbs now and have big displays of the new higher-priced lines. If anybody knows of supplies anywhere of incandescent bulbs, please add store location in a comment. We found some on weekend at grocers in Mitchell, Canberra. On 7th Jul. Franklins S’market in Yass plus the Home Hardware alongside, both have stock.
Posted in IPCC, Resources | 3 Comments »
July 6th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
And how long will it be before we will all need to have these bulbs ‘environmentally disposed of’ at a huge cost to each household?
It’s beyond comprehension that a policy that may (arguably) result in a very small drop in in CO2 (and even less in temperature) can outweigh the problems which would arise with mercury build-up in the landfill and water ways.
July 8th, 2009 at 9:17 am
We are heading for a major environmental disaster. The rapid ( unnecessary ) phasing out of
incandescent light bulbs has now reintroduced large amounts of poisonous mercury back into
our society. To date there is no consolidated state or federal directive on the safe disposal of the new CFL bulbs. Because of the hasty introduction of CLFs the first wave of dead bulbs will hit the landfills in the next two years.
A major study of the mercury levels in dumps and landfills should be undertaken now so a benchmark can be established. We will now see how committed the government is to saving the environment, temperatures may not rise but mercury levels most surely will.
October 1st, 2009 at 5:01 pm
I have just seen in our local paper a request for people to go to specified disposal points to put their flouro lights in with a big warning that the light bulbs contain mercury. What I predicted on Jul 6th is coming true. How long before people are fined for not disposing of their flouros correctly? Or how long before we pay a disposal levy (as we have to do with old fridges)?