By ALICE OLLSTEIN is a news intern with the Daily Press focusing on environmental issues. She
SAVING THE ENVIRONMENT AND SAVING money rarely go hand in hand. Organic produce and grass-fed beef cost astronomically more than their chemical-ridden, industrial counterparts. A new hybrid car goes for more money than a year at UCLA. And solar panels for an average American home are still tens of thousands of dollars out of reach. So when a product comes along that can curb global warming and save hundreds of dollars, why do so many respond, not with joy, but fear?
Enter the Compact Florescent Lamp, or CFL. After learning that this squiggly little guy uses a quarter of the energy of a normal, incandescent bulb and lasts up to 10 times longer, I was sold. I replaced both bulbs in my room and curled up with my book to observe the difference.
The quality of light was the same, if only a little brighter. More importantly, even after leaving the bulb on for an hour, it remained pleasantly warm to the touch. Regular bulbs become scorching hot because almost 90 percent of the energy going into it escapes as useless heat. My new CFL chose to use its allotted energy for a more efficient purpose than burning my hand.
Though these miracle bulbs lower both a house’s electricity bill and carbon footprint, misinformation about their safety abounds, frightening consumers away from their glow. The buzzword has been mercury, a neurotoxin dangerous to children, pregnant women and the general population.
Yes, CFLs do contain a minuscule amount of mercury, but the media has irresponsibly exaggerated the dangers involved. A household CFL, which contains.008 of the mercury contained in a mercury thermometer, poses little to no threat to human health. No mercury is released when the bulbs are intact, and should one break, there are simple measures to take to protect the household.
Should one smash, simply open a window and leave the room to air out for 15 minutes. Then sweep up the pieces, seal the bulb in two plastic bags and put it into the outside trash for normal trash collection. Better still, search www.epa.gov/bulbrecy-cling for a nearby recycling center.
In his collection of essays “Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim,” David Sedaris refers to his sister as “the type who religiously watches the fear segment of the local Eyewitness News broadcasts, retaining nothing but the headline.” This, to me, perfectly describes those afraid of changing their household light bulbs to CFLs.
If you were one of the millions of listeners who tuned into NPR in February to hear the report “CFL Bulbs Have One Hitch: Toxic Mercury,” you could have merely listened to the headline and decided that the new bulbs were deadly.
But if you listened to the entire report, which included quotes such as, “Even though fluorescent bulbs contain mercury, using them contributes less mercury to the environment than using regular incandescent bulbs” and, “The compact fluorescent light bulb is a product people can use to positively influence the environment,”it paints a different picture, doesn’t it?
Wait a minute, you might say. How can a bulb that contains mercury pollute less mercury than one with none? The answer is coal.
Though hydro, wind and solar projects are on the rise, most of the electricity in the U.S. comes from coal-fired power plants — the largest man-made source of mercury pollution.
In short, the mercury we should fret over is not the four milligrams contained in each CFL, but the 25 pounds a year emitted by each and every coal plant.
The Earth Policy Institute has stated that shifting to more efficient light bulbs would save enough electricity to close 80 U.S. coal power plants. In fact, if every home in America replaced just one incandescent light bulb with a CFL, in one year it would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes, and prevent the release of greenhouse gas emissions equal to that of about 800,000 cars. Instead of letting scare stories about mercury causing mutations in fetuses send us running back to our “safe,” wasteful incandescents, we should recall the words of Thomas Edison, the inventor of the original bulb. He said,“If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.” We may not be capable of taking down our nation’s hoards of pollution-belching coal plants all at once, but if each of us reaches for a CFL, the results would be astounding.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 18, 2008. Read the original PDF.