Cognitive Conga: a blog

Compact fluorescent light bulbs (a.k.a. compact fluorescent lamps, or CFLs) are becoming de rigeur in the UK now, because incandescent bulbs are being phased out but solid-state lighting (which would otherwise be preferable) is still expensive. As a result, increasingly many people in this country find themselves in the position of having to dispose of compact fluorescent light bulbs when those bulbs stop working. Doing this in an environmentally-friendly way isn’t, however, entirely straightforward, because on the one hand the bulbs contain the toxic element mercury and should therefore not be thrown away with general waste, and on the other hand, recycling points which accept CFLs are still few and far between.

How, then, should you go about disposing of a compact fluorescent light bulb in the UK? I’d suggest putting the bulb back into its original box (or else a toilet roll tube or similar) to reduce the risk of breakage, and then doing one of the following, in descending order of preference:

• If convenient, take the bulb to a designated recycling point for gas discharge lamps (use the options on this form to find one near you).
• Otherwise, if convenient, take the bulb back to a branch of the store where you bought it, and ask them to recycle it for you. Explain that under WEEE guidelines, the store should help you recycle the bulb.
• Otherwise, if convenient, take the bulb back to a branch of another store that sells CFLs, and ask them to recycle it for you.
• Otherwise, if convenient, take the bulb to the reception desk of your local council’s main office, explain to the receptionist that you’d like the council to provide kerbside recycling collection of CFLs but that in the meantime you’ll leave your old CFLs at the council office for the council to recycle.
• If none of the above is even remotely convenient, then wrap the boxed bulb in a couple of small plastic bags, and put it in a rubbish bin. The plastic bags should reduce the rate at which the mercury from the bulb will leach into the environment if the bulb breaks.

Is it really worth going to all this trouble? Well, yes.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 24th, 2010 at 4:09 pm and is filed under Ethics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.