What government makes it illegal for people to buy a decent light bulb that is not harmful to people

I haven't tried the LED lights yet, but that sounds like the way to go.

I have heard of sensitivity from flourescent lights, but only because of the type of light they give off. Many places will just buy bulk bluish or pinkish, and if they are all giving off the same spectrum of light, you miss the other one. I used to work in a factory where this was looked into, and they found that people with sensitivities worked better when both blue and pink/red spectrums were used. If you do decide to buy the compact flourescents, make sure you buy both spectrums. Mix them up around the house. I use them, have no troubles, but yeah, that's going to be a lot of mercury going into landfills, where I am, there is very little recycling. Literally living in Canada's backwoods, 2-3 hours from a city larger than 2 thousand people.

Canada has terrible recycling facilities outside of the cities. Up north, hardly anything close enough to get to. But lots of landfills.

reply to post by dreamseeker


The light bulbs in my grandmothers house are literally as old or older then she is.
The new bulbs aren't that bad

reply to post by beholdblight


Well I just called WALMART and the fluroscent light bulbs costs $8 per four pack. That is over 4 times more expensive! I can't afford that price upfront. I heard this won't start until 2012 but when will stores start pulling the old light bulbs off the shelves. I guess I better start stocking up.

reply to post by dreamseeker


The LED lights are even more expensive. It really seems like it is as all out war on the poor with DTV transition, food prices tripling in the last 3 years, no raise in the cola for 2 straight years for people on disablity and senior citzens, jobs being outsource or given to illegal aliens, high unemployment, raising rents, foreclosures, the one little sentence in the health care bill that ruins it completely that everyone HAS to buy health insurance, raising utlity costs, rising gas prices, and more. My sister's unemployment was lowered by $40 recently. She has 3 kids and is looking for work. When all jobs have 300 applicants to one position something is definitely wrong. My sister was always able to get a job in 2 weeks now it has been 10 months.
The government is so focused on their green intiative that they forgot about the people and the burden to is to us.

Originally posted by dreamseeker
reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan

 

I wonder how soon? How long do I have to buy a lifetime's worth of bulbs? Now if I had more money I would buy halogen bulbs. They do not have mecury and are safe for people with fluroscent light senstivities right. I was going to buy $5-$10 worth of lightbulbs per month for a year.

There are going to be people like me who will go in and buy up these light bulbs so this new law is utterly stupid!

edit on 31-12-2010 by dreamseeker because: (no reason given)

See, halogen bulbs are worse than the old filament bulbs. Talk about wasting energy as heat...halogen are crazy hot. My mom had them installed as under cabinet lights in her kitchen, and they make it where i can't work in there when cutting stuff up. If i cook at her house, i turn them off.

But the EPA is recommending not using CFL's in certain areas:

EPA Issues New Guidelines For HCFL Cleanup

Actions You Can Take to Prevent Broken Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs
Fluorescent bulbs are made of glass and can break if dropped or roughly handled. To avoid breaking a bulb, follow these general practices:

* Always switch off and allow a working CFL bulb to cool before handling.
* Always handle CFL bulbs carefully to avoid breakage.
o If possible, screw/unscrew the CFL by holding the plastic or ceramic base, not the glass tubing.
o Gently screw in the CFL until snug. Do not over-tighten.
o Never forcefully twist the glass tubing.
* Consider not using CFLs in lamps that can be easily knocked over, in unprotected light fixtures, or in lamps that are incompatible with the spiral or folded shape of many CFLs.
* Do not use CFL bulbs in locations where they can easily be broken, such as play spaces.
* Use CFL bulbs that have a glass or plastic cover over the spiral or folded glass tube, if available. These types of bulbs look more like incandescent bulbs and may be more durable if dropped.
* Consider using a drop cloth (e.g., plastic sheet or beach towel) when changing a fluorescent light bulb in case a breakage should occur. The drop cloth will help prevent mercury contamination of nearby surfaces and can be bundled with the bulb debris for disposal.

Well I just called WALMART and the fluroscent light bulbs costs $8 per four pack. That is over 4 times more expensive! I can't afford that price upfront.

Our local utility company (Duke) is giving cfl’s for free. The have been for the last few years. This year they sent me 8 at no charge (including shipping). Plus the life span is far more than a few months. I have only changed one bad one in the last 6 years.

Damn things don't last. They are no better. I have not had some "dramatic" reduction in energy use. I replace them just as often.

LEDs are not as bright, and I don't want to live in a dungeon for 6 months of the year.

CFLs don't live up to their hype. At all. AND I get to contend with mercury if they explode. Woo-Hoo.

Oh yeah - and now I'm expected to get in my car and DRIVE the damn bulbs to a recycling point. Of which there are like....none.

reply to post by dreamseeker


Do you mean migraines? They trigger the hell out of visual migraines (no pain or nausea, usually- just flashing arcs until you really can't see). I've wondered if they affect people with neurological disorders and epilepsy.
Flourescents will rapidly & severely fade anything they shine on, directly.
We're stockpiling "heat balls" (incandescents). CFLs are a toxic time bomb.

Originally posted by Aeons
Damn things don't last. They are no better. I have not had some "dramatic" reduction in energy use. I replace them just as often.

LEDs are not as bright, and I don't want to live in a dungeon for 6 months of the year.

CFLs don't live up to their hype. At all. AND I get to contend with mercury if they explode. Woo-Hoo.

Oh yeah - and now I'm expected to get in my car and DRIVE the damn bulbs to a recycling point. Of which there are like....none.

edit on 2010/12/31 by Aeons because: (no reason given)

The risk of mercury exposure in a meaningful amount to a reasonably astute adult or older child is small. Very small.

But the lack of recylcing locations is critical. It is putting large amounts of mercury in our soil, which will end up in our groundwater.

I smell a set up. And The People aren't smart enough to know better.than to poison themselves with mercury, or enslave themselves to water companies.

www.cbc.ca...

The 2 cents I save in energy for my home, I get to put in my gas tank to drive the damn thing to a store.

Seems you've been a little slow in implementing the change to CFL lighting as 'standard' domestic incandescent lamps in the most common sizes disappeared from the shop shelves here over 12 months back. Incandescents in 'uncommon' shapes and base sizes for novelty and specialty applications are still available but slowly being replaced by placing a more efficient tungsten halogen lamp of lower power inside the same construction but the energy saving there is minimal, maybe non-existant after accounting for more complex manufacturing procedures.

The odd thing, to me, is that the dichroic 'downlights' of typically 50W rating are still everywhere and those are the worst energy wasters of all because of the number that need to be installed to achieve an even overall illumination. A typical living room used to be lit by a single 60W-100W incandescent lamp in a light fitting with reflector and diffuser and those lamps can now be replaced directly by a 10W-15W CFL (get warm white if bluish light disturbs you as it does most people) for an energy saving of up to 90%. Problem is that many many homes are still installing and maintaining dichroic downlights requiring 6 or more 50W lamps to light the typical living room as above and using around 3 times the energy of the simple single incandescent installation or up to 10 times the energy consumed by the CFL solution yet they're still in plentiful supply?.

LED is definitely the next step but the price is the main barrier as it currently costs around 20 times as much to purchase each lamp compared to older incandescents. The benefits are twofold though, lifetime of 100000+ hours and an order of magnitude or better in less energy consumption.

I see many observations of no noticeable reduction in energy usage after a change to CFL lighting and that comes down to trying to find a reduction of 1 or 2 hundred watts on average while the household heating (space and water heating) is still chewing up 5 kilowatts or more depending on the season IE it's very hard to see the change but it is real.

A note on the 'health effects' of CFL lighting:
Closely check the label before buying any CFLs particularly the 'bargain store' packs that are very cheap. If they have a color temperature of 6400K avoid them like the plague because those are the ones that trigger migraines etc and are generally annoying because of the glaring bluish white light they produce with, I suspect, a lot of UV. I don't suffer from migraines and never have but those 6400K lamps are intensely disturbing even to me and I simply can't stay in a room lit by one of them. The 'mercury pollution' aspect of CFLs, although real to some extent, is hyped up somewhat because we've been using flourescent lamps for over 50 years on a large scale and those 4-5' 40W+ tubes contain a huge amount of mercury vapor compared to a CFL yet there's been no environmental outcry over those that I ever noticed.

Originally posted by bigfatfurrytexan
The risk of mercury exposure ...is small. Very small.

The CFL Mercury Nightmare
www.nationalpost.com...

Excerpt:

Brandy Bridges of Ellsworth, Maine... had the misfortune of breaking a CFL during installation in her daughter's bedroom... Bridges called her local Home Depot for advice. The store told her that the CFL contained mercury and that she should call the Poison Control hotline, which in turn directed her to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. The DEP sent a specialist to Bridges' house .... The specialist found mercury levels in the bedroom in excess of six times the state's "safe" level for mercury contamination of 300 billionths of a gram per cubic meter.

The DEP specialist recommended that Bridges call an environmental cleanup firm, which reportedly gave her a "low-ball" estimate of US$2,000 to clean up the room. The room then was sealed off with plastic and Bridges began "gathering finances" to pay for the US$2,000 cleaning. Reportedly, her insurance company wouldn't cover the cleanup costs because mercury is a pollutant.

Originally posted by soleprobe

Originally posted by bigfatfurrytexan
The risk of mercury exposure ...is small. Very small.

The CFL Mercury Nightmare
www.nationalpost.com...

Excerpt:

Brandy Bridges of Ellsworth, Maine... had the misfortune of breaking a CFL during installation in her daughter's bedroom... Bridges called her local Home Depot for advice. The store told her that the CFL contained mercury and that she should call the Poison Control hotline, which in turn directed her to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. The DEP sent a specialist to Bridges' house .... The specialist found mercury levels in the bedroom in excess of six times the state's "safe" level for mercury contamination of 300 billionths of a gram per cubic meter.

The DEP specialist recommended that Bridges call an environmental cleanup firm, which reportedly gave her a "low-ball" estimate of US$2,000 to clean up the room. The room then was sealed off with plastic and Bridges began "gathering finances" to pay for the US$2,000 cleaning. Reportedly, her insurance company wouldn't cover the cleanup costs because mercury is a pollutant.

And she could have just cleaned the damned thing up like i do and been done with it for free.

people are freaking stupid. fo realz.

reply to post by Aeons


Oh, and when these cfl's break, guess what? It is a live flame for a good five seconds!

Political death to the signers of these bills. They must be responsible for the long term toxic effects. Bury the bulbs and those who forced their usage.

Originally posted by bigfatfurrytexan
And she could have just cleaned the damned thing up like i do and been done with it for free.

people are freaking stupid. fo realz.

You do realize that mercury damages the brain... and since the amount of mercury in her room exceeded the safe levels by 6 times according to DEP if she would "have just cleaned the damned thing up like [you] do..." she would risk causing damage to her brain. However you did save yourself a lot of money especially if you can spare the brain cells.

Originally posted by bluemooone2
God , what right does the government have to tell us what kind of light bulb we can buy? The incandescent light bulbs will start disappearing from the store shelves soon , and the "improved" ones are little toxic bombs if broken.
www.washingtonpost.com...

edit on 31-12-2010 by bluemooone2 because: (no reason given)

It's my understanding these bulbs use elemental mercury, and only the vapor is toxic. It isn't absorbed when ingested like the organic and inorganic mercury compounds are.

With a single bulb, the amount that vaporizes on breakage will be so small and so diffuse that I think it would have very little significance. The remaining mercury on surfaces after the initial vapor release would likely be of little concern, as it can't be absorbed through the skin or even when eaten.

Long ago people were poisoned by elemental mercury vapor when working with large amounts of it. And I even recall reading that persons working in a nasty Chinese bulb factory were poisoned, too. But these people work with the compound itself before it goes into the bulb and are processing thousands of bulbs every day.

People worry so much about one of these bulbs breaking, but just taking a trip to the basement to grab some tools to clean-up the broken bulb will likely expose one to more significantly toxic particles in the air (radon, etc) than the bulb did, and so does probably a puff or two of a cigarette or being around other people smoking.

Holy crap, I didn't know this. I broke 2 the other day trying to replace the bulbs in my kitchen. My cover doesn't fit over them and I learned the hard way. I had to go searching for regular bulbs, they were hard to find.
I remember back when I was a kid, my grandfather had a bottle of mercury, hey would pour it in mine and my friends hands we thought it was so cool watching it ball up. Maybe thats whats wrong with me lol.

The mercury content is a real concern, but at the end of the day, its what the Eugenicists want so it works out well.

Hate fluorescent light bulbs that flicker upon their deaths. Gives me a headache just being underneath those torture devices. Prefer the smooth surface iridescent light bulbs, which are easier to dust, by the way.

Originally posted by soleprobe

Originally posted by bigfatfurrytexan
And she could have just cleaned the damned thing up like i do and been done with it for free.

people are freaking stupid. fo realz.

You do realize that mercury damages the brain... and since the amount of mercury in her room exceeded the safe levels by 6 times according to DEP if she would "have just cleaned the damned thing up like [you] do..." she would risk causing damage to her brain. However you did save yourself a lot of money especially if you can spare the brain cells.

Like i said, presuming that it is a reasonably astute adult or older child, there will be no problem.

Yeah, you get a small amount of mercury in your body. It will eventually pass out of your body, too.

No wonder we are getting groped at the airport. Look how easy it is to scare people. 5 minutes to quickly clean up the break If 5 minutes is too short for you, you can always follow the recommendations of the EPA.(i linked it above). That'll save you 2400 bucks, too.

What, do you want to live forever? Do you really expect significant exposure in that amount of time? and do you really think there is going to be latent mercury just floating in the air for hours? It isn't radiation.

I should add: of course, i would rather not have these bulbs in use. Once we can get LED's to work decently as a soft, broadcast light (as opposed to the harsh spotlight it is now) maybe it will replace CFL's. I hate having mercury in my fish. THAT is a concern to me. Not a small exposure during a cleanup that happens occasionally.