When Your CFL Goes Dark: The Life and Death of an Energy-Efficient Light Bulb

Recently one of my household's ice cream cone-shaped compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) burned out. As I carried it to the garbage can my husband made two comments. First, aren't those bulbs supposed to last, like, a decade? And second, don't you have to dispose of them in some special way since they contain mercury?

Being a bit of a closet greeny - and not wanting to pollute our landfills with heavy metals - I decided to look into the matter further.

Upon reading the fine print on some CFL packaging I learned that the life of many bulbs is advertised to be seven to ten years. In my experience CFL bulbs last one to three years depending on their application. Many CFL bulbs have warranties and can be returned for a refund if they go dark before the end of the warranty period. That said, I tried getting a refund from a manufacturer once and am still waiting for my money, two years later. (Don't tell my husband. He'd have a canary.)

As to the issue of disposal, my better half is right: you cannot toss your CFL bulbs in the bin along with last week's leftovers. Because of the mercury that they contain they must be disposed of at a proper recycling facility. In Burnsville, the only option is the Home Depot store on Nicollet Boulevard West. Nearby in Apple Valley, Batteries Plus on Cedar Avenue and Home Depot on Flagstaff at County Road 42 will take your old CFLs (and be happy to sell you newer, better ones).

Now, about that mercury. Apparently CFL bulbs do not emit mercury (although I wouldn't necessarily lick them, as much as they look like a vanilla cone), and only contain about 4 milligrams of mercury each. The Energy Star people (who I'd imagine must look like starred Sneeches) say that, since CFLs use so much less energy than incandescents (half to one-third less, reportedly), they produce less greenhouse gas emissions (including less mercury) from power plants so the mercury is a fair trade-off. Hmmm.

The Energy Star Sneeches conclude that, "If every home in America replaced just one incandescent light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified CFL, we would save enough energy every year to light 3 million homes and prevent greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those from about 800,000 cars." (http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=cfls.pr_cfls_mercury)

I'm no statistician, but that sounds pretty good to me. I'll see you at Home Depot, over in the light bulb section.