You need to check with a proper source perhaps someone from EPA or the actual industry. i believe mercury has not been used in fluorescent bulbs for years and that older balasts using PCBs have been also gone for years.
What he says about mercury vapor is correct, but I don't believe modern bulbs use mercury. Also true for PCBs they havn't been in the condensors in balasts for over 20 years. I will check with a qualified source and confirm this. Tom Fowle Embedded Systems Developer/ Rehab engineer Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute 2318 Fillmore St. San Francisco, CA 94115 415-345-2123 (Voice) [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Sat, Sep 29, 2007 at 09:06:30PM -0400, Barbara wrote: > Bulbs To Save Energy Are Very Dangerous To Children > > > September 30, 2007 > > Environmentally Friendly Bulbs To Save Energy Are Very Dangerous To Children > By Thomas M. Dutkiewicz > > Forestville, CT - Why is the media acts so surprised that these new bulbs to > save energy are dangerous? To say that these bulbs are environmentally > friendly is an oxymoron. They are anything but friendly . . . they are > dangerous to the environment and to all children. > > They are florescence bulbs and all florescence bulbs contain dangerous > Mercury Vapor which is more dangerous than mercury liquid. For decades they > have been putting mercury vapor in the bulbs. That's what make them work. > > Mercury in a liquid form can be seen and it balls up which is easier to clean > up. Mercury vapor on the other hand can not be seen nor can it be detected > by home owners. You need a special air monitoring device that detects the > presences of mercury vapor along the floor. You will not find it in your > breathing zone. > > The specific gravity of mercury vapor is heavier than air and will settle > into your rugs and stay there. So next time you break one of these bulbs in > your home, you are exposing your children to mercury vapor. So remember this > when you place your baby or children on the floor. > > You need a special absorption pellet that absorbs mercury vapor on the floor. > Then the hazmat team must vacuum it up and dispose of the pellet as a > contaminated material. You then go in with monitoring equipment to see if > there is any residual mercury left and if there is, you repeat the process. > > Every single florescence bulb in our schools, lunch rooms, grocery stores > contain mercury vapor. The mercury vapor is dangerous to all humans > especially children. Business should not be throwing florescence bulbs away > in dumpsters which then ends up in our water systems. > > What's even more deadlier is all of the older ballasts that are running these > florescence bulbs, they contain Polychlorinated Biphenyl's or PCB's. In > business renovations these contaminated ballasts are thrown out which contain > liquid PCB's which also gets into our water system. > > Home owners now have treat these bulbs as a hazardous material as defined by > the EPA and the DOT and dispose of them properly. The cost of disposal will > over shadow the cost savings. A couple of manufactures do print this mercury > warning on the packaging but no one ever reads the packaging of a light bulb. > > The undersign has been in the hazardous waste, remediation and transportation > business for many years. He has cleaned up mercury vapor as well as other > numerous spills of various kinds. > > > Thomas M. Dutkiewicz > P.O. Box 9775 > Forestville, CT 06011-9775 > 860-833-4127 > > > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] >
