DoubleDogFarm wrote:Alright, where is Rainbowgardener? We need the environmental side of this equation.
Eric
I'm not RBG, but...
When a CFL burns out (and we've gone through two in the past two years on our inside stairway, which light is turned on only when needed), it is considered
hazardous waste. Burned-out incandescents may be tossed into the household trash; CFLs may
not. They contain mercury and must be disposed of in an approved fashion so as not to distribute toxic mercury throughout the landscape.
If a CFL is dropped and breaks, special measures need to be taken to clean it up (I've posted elsewhere here at THG about the special measures).
Personally, I think it's absolutely INSANE to mandate that anyone use a light bulb
1) known to contain mercury,
2) known to need disposal as hazardous waste (when it's hard enough to get people to recycle newspaper...), and
3) in need of special measures when accidents happen.
An aspect of this mandate of CFLs and phase-out of incandescents that I rarely see discussed outside of the affected population is the fact that fluorescents are, for many,
many people, a
migraine trigger. The flicker of fluorescents--not always visible or consciously discernible, but there's no fooling the optic nerve--whether said fluorescents are traditional blue/white, full-spectrum, or CFLs in whatever conformation, can induce optic-nerve spasms in migraineurs, leading quickly to a migraine. I've always tried to have some natural light available in addition to the fluorescent overheads at work, whether in a school or an office. If natural light wasn't available (no windows), then a lamp with an Ott bulb or bright incandescent bulb helped as a counter to the fluorescent flicker.
Clearly, no one in Congress and no one in a Congress rep's family knew about the migraine trigger. I'm just waiting for the first ADA suit against this law. I very rarely "look forward" to anything involving the ADA, since it is used, at least in the S.F. Bay Area, to harass and intimidate small businesses out of existence. But, in this case, I don't think that Congress is a "small business," and I think the people being harassed and intimidated are those of us with migraines and possibly (although I don't know for sure) people with certain susceptibilities to seizures via optical stimuli. We will be legally required to expose ourselves to these medical disasters much more often--and even in our own homes!--thanks to this Act of Congress.
Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9