 Do you realize how much energy it takes to light your home? In the U.S., the average household spends 20 percent of its electricity bill on lighting. BanTheBulb.org is a website dedicated to teaching consumers how to save money and protect the environment by using energy-efficient light bulbs.
According to the website, their goal is to ban the sale of incandescent bulbs by specific dates, starting with 60W and 100W incandescent bulbs. The organization promotes energy efficiency and conservation by explaining the benefits of greater energy efficiency while encouraging the adoption of available technologies. It also supports a higher tax on incandescent light bulbs to make fluorescent lights more cost competitive.
The EU has recently announced its intention to cut carbon emissions by 20 percent by 2020. Energy saving is an essential part of the EU's strategy to reduce CO2 emissions, but 80 percent of home lighting today uses highly inefficient incandescent bulbs that convert only five percent of the energy they consume into light.
This month, "at an EU conference hosted by Germany's Chancellor, Angela Merkel, the European Union's leaders announced their intention to ban incandescent light bulbs, for the 490 million people living within the EU's 27 countries, by 2010," according to the website. This new legislation being pondered by the EU calls upon member states, "along with EU encouragement [to] immediately launch public information campaigns on the economic and environmental advantages of efficient lighting systems and maximize existing legislation to facilitate the phasing-out of the incandescent bulb."
There is a growing worldwide move to ban incandescent bulbs in such diverse places as Cuba (May '06), Venezuela (Nov '06), Australia (Feb '07) and Ontario, Canada (Feb '07). Five U.S. states, including California, are also considering legislation to ban incandescent bulbs.
One section from the website sums up the ambition behind this project: "Let's just hope that more politicians start to mention how they intend to decide which light bulbs should be banned (and by when!), what they are going to do to ensure that all CFLs are responsibly recycled, how they are going to help the poor to change their lighting, whether any heavily-taxed incandescent bulbs are going to remain available for specialist purposes, which other wasteful technologies they would like to get banned and/or which other energy-efficient technologies they would like to help get established..."
Alternatives to the light bulbAs consumers and nations move away from highly inefficient incandescent lights, most are considering using compact fluorescent light bulbs. Yet few people truly understand the health hazards posed by the mercury found in these lights.
Fluorescent lights are filled with a gas containing low-pressure mercury vapor and argon. The inner surface of the bulb is coated with a fluorescent coating made of varying blends of metallic and rare earth phosphor salts. When a high-voltage current is passed through this vapor, the electricity causes the gasses to "fluoresce" or emit light.
Fluorescent light bulbs are more efficient than incandescent light bulbs of an equivalent brightness, but they flicker, hum and burn out more quickly when cycled frequently. They also contain a remarkably high amount of toxic mercury -- about 4mg - 6mg per fluorescent light bulb.
About 30,000 pounds of mercury are dumped into the environment each year due to the disposal of compact fluorescent light bulbs. That's an enormous amount of mercury, and almost half of the total amount of mercury emitted into the atmosphere by coal-fired power plants.
Many state governing agencies have even adopted their own regulations regarding fluorescent lights. In California, Minnesota, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin, it is unlawful for anyone to dispose of fluorescent bulbs as universal waste, according to LightBulbRecycling.com.
So far, BanTheBulb.org fails to offer mercury-free alternative to fluorescent lights, such as my own company's high-efficiency LED lighting products found at www.BetterLifeGoods.com
These LED lights are completely free of mercury, and they generate clean white light using 1/10th the electricity of incandescent light bulbs. They're more expensive up front (due to the use of high quality components), but they last 50,000 hours and pay for themselves within 1 - 2 years of use due to electricity savings.
Promoting the use of compact fluorescent lights is, I believe, creating a serious threat to the health of our environment. Most consumers do not properly recycle fluorescent lamps. While the widespread consumption of fluorescent lights may save our nation from wasting electricity on incandescent lights, it may also lead to a mercury contamination catastrophe. Never before in the history of our world has so much mercury been so widely distributed across the environment. The long-term effects of this contamination are currently unknown, but they can only be negative. The only unknown concerns the degree of harm that will emerge.
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