At 10:51 AM 6/30/2008 -0400, you wrote: >All this back and forth about CFLs has reawakened a question I have had for >years. What about non-compact fluorescent tubes? You know, the straight >ones, 2 or 4 feet long, and the circline bulbs. Don't they contain mercury >too? They break pretty easily too, if disposed of in the trash. I have been >saving them for years, pending resolution of the question.
Dear Joel and Friends--Yes! The standard tubular bulbs have even more mercury--up to 15 mg. This is compared to 3.5 mg. for an "older" CFL or 1/10 of that amount for a newer, reduced mercury version. Per the suggestion of another subscriber, take all of your fluorescent bulbs to the Tompkins Solid Waste Management Division facility on Commercial Ave. for disposal. Never intentionally break a fluorescent bulb to dispose of it in the trash. Another thought is that most of our mercury exposure comes from coal-fired power plants. In theory at least, if we put pressure on out energy infrastructure providers to use "Green" methods of generating electricity we will be greatly reducing our dependance on coal-fired plants. Eventually we would reduce our mercury emissions in this way. However, Big Coal is a very powerful force in the energy market and whether it is realistic to reduce the emissions from coal-fired plants by their elimination from the energy market is very dubious. The best thing to do with coal is to leave it in the ground, but this is unlikely to happen in our lifetimes. My $.02. Tom ****************************************** Tom Shelley 118 E. Court St. Ithaca, NY 14850 607 342-0864 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Compost Educator and General Sustainability Geek _______________________________________________ For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: [email protected] http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
