Compact Flourescent Lightbulbs
Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs (CFLs) and fluorescent lightbulbs utilize mercury to create light.
An Overview of the Problems Surrounding Fluorescent Lighting
Shortsighted Legislation
Imagine a country that decided it was a good idea to put a highly toxic element in very fragile containers and encourage all its citizens to keep these containers in every room in their homes. Imagine that most of the people didn't know the containers held a toxin or that the containers were potentially dangerous. Then, imagine that the leaders of that country decided that these containers were so great that they would make it against the law for its citizens not to use them.
This is not your imagination. This is the situation with compact fluorescent light bulbs in the United States in 2008.
SafeMinds' Environmental Committee is working to stop the unsafe proliferation of fluorescent light bulbs because of the significant mercury contamination hazard that they pose in homes and because of the current lack of effective recycling programs. With the advent of global warming, there has been a major push, including free give-aways, to get consumers to purchase and use compact fluorescent bulbs in place of incandescent bulbs due to their greater energy efficiency. Unfortunately, our government has given little thought to the long-term consequences of this action in terms of increasing mercury exposure in homes and landfills. Many Americans are not even aware of the fact that there is mercury in fluorescent bulbs. Nor are they aware that these bulbs must be recycled properly.
Legislation that would outlaw incandescent lighting is currently packaged within the larger House energy bill. For a discussion of some of the issues related to this change, please see this video of Representative Ted Poe of Texas speaking before the House.
"It's A Small Amount"
One argument that is often made about compact fluorescents is that they only contain a "small amount of mercury". Current CFLs typically contain less than 5mg (not mcg) of mercury. Some contain as "little" as half of that or 2.5 mg. Let's put that number in perspective:
There are 1000 mg in a gram so 400 CFLs contain a gram of mercury. A gram of mercury (about 1/70th of a teaspoon because mercury is very heavy) is enough, if vaporized, to contaminate a 20-acre lake for a year to the point where the fish are unsafe to eat. Now consider the fact that in 2007 the EPA estimates that 380 million CFLs were sold. Those bulbs contained enough mercury to make 950,000 lakes toxic! This is by no means a "small" amount of environmental mercury.
Now let's look at the "small" amount of mercury in a single compact fluorescent assuming that it just broke in your home. Again, we take a CFL containing 2.5mg of mercury but this time we convert it to nanograms, which are billionths of a gram. 2.5mg= 2,500,000 nanograms of mercury.
A typical 12'x14' room with an 8' ceiling contains 38 cubic meters of air. If you divide these numbers you get an air concentration of 65,789 nanograms of mercury per cubic meter of air. For argument's sake, let's assume that only a 10th of the mercury in that CFL actually vaporized (which is conservative based on the published data), so now you are down to 6,579 nanograms per cubic meter of air. Next, let's look at some of the safety reference ranges that the government has established:
300 nanograms per cubic meter of air - this is the Environmental Protection Agency's reference concentration for chronic occupational exposure to mercury vapor in adult males.
200 nanograms per cubic meter of air - this is the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry's Minimal Risk Level for chronic exposure in adult males. They have also established a re-occupancy level of 1000ng/cubic meter; this is the level at which it is safe for people to re-enter a building that has been contaminated with mercury.
Both of these reference ranges have safety factors of 30 built into them. One single CFL, when broken, produces an air concentration of mercury roughly equivalent to the level that is known to cause neurological effects in adults
90 nanograms per cubic meter of air - this is California's Reference Exposure Level to prevent mercury damage to the developing brain based on animal studies. In our conservative example a broken CFL exceeds this reference range by 73 times!
Obviously, the amount of mercury in the air will dissipate over time, but this assumes that the homeowner knows that there is mercury in the CFL and cleans up and ventilates appropriately. At SafeMinds, we would rather be cautious and consider the "what if" scenarios:
"What if the homeowner is a pregnant woman?"
"What if the bulb breaks in a toddler's bedroom - or a daycare?"
"What if someone drops a multi-pack of bulbs?"
"What if the room has no windows to ventilate through?
"What if the broken bulb gets left in the trash can for a week?
"What if the homeowner doesn't have a clue that they have a neurotoxin on the floor?"
Even a "small amount" of mercury should not be taken lightly.
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