Rob Kleinschmidt

I was with a building contractor the other day and he was asking whether or not compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) were actually any better for the environment. He was talking about how there was a problem with disposal of the light bulbs because of the mercury content in the bulbs.

Focus on Energy is a program in Wisconsin the tries to help people understand problems like this. A recent fact sheet talks directly about this issue. Mercury is indeed not a good thing for anybody's health or the environment, so what about CFLs?

CFLs do contain a small amount of mercury- about 5 mg (milligrams) on average. But, that amount is relatively small. Some watch batteries contain up to 25 mg of mercury and many manual thermostats in people's homes contain up to 3000 mg of mercury!

With proper disposal, CFLs can still save people energy and not have a negative impact. The best option to consider is recycling the bulbs. There are a lot of web sites to look to for help in finding recycling options for CFLs. Here are a few:

lamprecycle.org

www.earth911.org

www.epa.gov/bulbrecycling

www.focusonenergy.com

Hope this helps with some information!