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Mercury Toxicity
Posted by:
KidRaw
()
Date: December 31, 2010 11:32PM California Banning 100-watt Incandescent Light Bulbs
[cubachi.com] "Eco-bulbs or flourescent bulbs, are very dangerous if broken due to the level of mercury inside. The toxic vapor, if breathed in, can cause serious health risks." CFLs can break and release mercury vapor if dropped or roughly handled. EPA encourages consumers to handle and use CFLs safely. Be careful when removing the bulb from its packaging, installing it, or replacing it. If a CFL breaks in your home, please follow EPA's recommended steps to carefully clean up and dispose of broken bulbs. These recommendations will help to minimize any exposure to released mercury vapor. EPA encourages the recycling of burned out fluorescent bulbs rather than disposing of them in regular household trash. Recycling of burned out CFLs is one of the best ways to help prevent the release of mercury to the environment by keeping mercury out of landfills and incinerators." "People exposed to mercury from a broken bulb risk health effects if the gas is breathed, or if they touch the broken bulbs and absorb mercury into the skin. This type of exposure can affect the nervous system, and is also linked to abnormal brain development in children." Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/31/2010 11:38PM by KidRaw. Re: Mercury Toxicity
Posted by:
Anonymous User
()
Date: December 31, 2010 11:39PM SEE?! I told you so!
But do they recommend an alternative or tell you where to get it? Oh no, of course not. You don't know how I've been searching for reasonably priced LED's that cast a natural looking light. Next to impossible! Re: Mercury Toxicity
Posted by:
KidRaw
()
Date: December 31, 2010 11:42PM Mercury Leaks and Autism
[www.huffingtonpost.com] “Compact fluorescent lamps, those spiral, energy-efficient bulbs popular as a device to combat global warming can pose a small risk of mercury poisoning to infants, young children, and pregnant women if they break, two reports concluded yesterday [issued by the state of Maine and the Vermont-based Mercury Policy Project]." “For the Maine study, researchers shattered 65 compact fluorescents to test air quality and cleanup methods. They found that, in many cases, immediately after the bulb was broken -and sometimes even after a cleanup was attempted- levels of mercury vapor exceeded federal guidelines for chronic exposure by as much as 100 times.” “We found some very high levels [of mercury] even after we tried a number of cleanup techniques," said Mark Hyland, director of Maine's Bureau of Remediation and Waste Management.” “Compact fluorescents can contain from 1 to 30 mg [not mcg] of mercury, according to the Mercury Policy Project. The nonprofit cited a New Jersey study that estimated that about 2 to 4 tons of the element are released into the environment in the United States each year from compact fluorescents. That number is expected to grow as sales do. In comparison, about 48 tons of mercury is released into the environment by power plants each year, according to federal statistics.”” ****************** What Are the Dangers of Mercury Light Bulbs? [www.livestrong.com] Disposal Dangers "One of the biggest problems with energy efficient light bulbs involves safe disposal. Many consumers are simply unaware that these bulbs contain mercury. Those that do understand the risks may have trouble finding local resources for recycling and disposal. Even if you never break a CFL in your home, you could still suffer negative effects over time due to unsafe disposal habits. The Iowa Waste Reduction Center estimates that 670 million of these bulbs were disposed of in 2003, yet only 23 percent were recycled. The remaining bulbs likely ended up in landfills, where they were inevitably broken. If these bulbs are recycled, the mercury can be safely collected and reused, while the glass and metal components within the bulb are processed and used to be make new bulbs. Methylmercury Once CFL's reach a landfill, the mercury eventually leaks out once the glass casing is broken. The Iowa Waste Reduction Center estimates that between 2,079 and 2,554 metric tons of mercury end up in landfills each year. This mercury can't break down, and exposure to bacteria and other organisms eventually turns the mercury into a gaseous material called "methymercury." The methylmercury seeps into local water supplies over time, where it can have devastating environmental effects. Not only does it poison fish and other sea creatures, but also disrupts the entire ecosystem. When humans and other animals consume these fish, they are at-risk for serious health effects ranging from nervous system disorders to birth defects." ***************** This is an outrage that we're being forced to compromise our Health and the Environment with Toxic Mercury! Re: Mercury Toxicity
Posted by:
Horsea
()
Date: January 01, 2011 04:07AM Just save your pennies and buy a whole ****load of old fashioned bulbs. What are "they" going to do, demand entry into everyone's home to see if they have the politically incorrect type of bulbs in their sockets? Feh! Re: Mercury Toxicity
Posted by:
Anonymous User
()
Date: January 01, 2011 04:11AM I don't want to pay the hydro on those dinosaurs. I'm going to replace with LED's one by one. They last a long time, I'm doing it. Re: Mercury Toxicity
Posted by:
Tamukha
()
Date: January 01, 2011 02:31PM I am not worried about the mercury in the eco bulbs[I know how to handle a light bulb] any more than I was worried about the mercury thermometers we had until I was 20-something. Broke one once, and cleaned it up and am not apparently retarded as a result. Whaddaya know. If things like these links are to say, there are risks involved and we should be cautious, I agree. If it's to convince us to go backwards to old technologies, well, that's a bus I won't get on. I'm with coco about looking to LEDS as a good substitute in the future.
Honestly, I am more worried, and so should everyone be, about mercury in our topsoil and as an adulterant in medicines and vaccines. Re: Mercury Toxicity
Posted by:
Anonymous User
()
Date: January 01, 2011 02:46PM I broke one. On our bed too. We immediately left the room and closed the door but then I spent hours on the phone with various lighting departments trying to find out how to clean it up, none knew! In fact, most of the places I talked to were unaware that those bulbs even contain mercury or need any special clean up procedure. I find it positively unforgivable that a common household item that requires such special handling comes with ZERO info on it's packaging or given to the stores that sell it. Unforgivable that, exactly how is it even allowed?
Most people who break a bulb (and I have broken so many regular bulbs, I anticipate a fair number of broken mercury containing bulbs) will just clean it up as usual, then toss the shards into the trash. I am worried about this, it's bad medicine. Re: Mercury Toxicity
Posted by:
Tamukha
()
Date: January 01, 2011 05:38PM coco,
From energystar.gov website:
Keep in mind that a typical CFL bulb contains only a few milligrams of mercury, whereas the old thermometers, like the one I broke and which didn't kill me, have hundreds of times that amount of mercury. Re: Mercury Toxicity
Posted by:
Anonymous User
()
Date: January 01, 2011 06:22PM No internet at home when I broke that bulb, it was hard to find out how to deal with it. Some steps I was told to take are missing from that list. Here's what I was told to do.
Leave the room immediately, closing the door. Open a window to air it out. Wear gloves and a mask (and goggles I would think), pick up as much glass as you can, use tape to pat-pick up the smaller pieces and dust. DO NOT VACUUM! Of course, if the bulb broke on carpet (which mine did) you'll have to vacuum, you are instructed to dispose of the vacuum bag by double bagging it and putting it in the trash, then rinse out the canister, tubes etc of the vacuum cleaner. Because I broke the bulb on my bedding and mattress I was supposed to throw them out. You aren't to clean stuff in the washer and drier or you'll contaminate them. Of course I vacuumed the mattress and double washed my bedding, hung it outside to dry and warm water rinsed the washer a couple of times. Anything you used for clean up should be double bagged and put into the trash. I remember playing with mercury in high school science class, they didn't exactly take care to have us not touch it. These things are accumulative though and with small kiddies in the house I don't feel that I can be too careful. If I could only find some good advice about what kind of LED's to buy and where to get them. It's quite a risk to by a $30+ single bulb only to find out that it's horrible lighting! It should be easier than this to find alternatives. Re: Mercury Toxicity
Posted by:
Curator
()
Date: January 02, 2011 12:17AM try out the super cheap chinese ones, they may be far inferior, but they are a 10th of the price, and can give you a good baseline to compare others too...any place you can actually view them in person would be cool...but It seems a bit early for that:/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oh, mirror in the sky What is love? Can the child within my heart rise above? Can I sail through the changing ocean tides? Can I handle the seasons of my life? Re: Mercury Toxicity
Posted by:
Horsea
()
Date: January 02, 2011 04:08AM Mercury in our topsoil? Yes, that's a worry, too. It all goes together.
The care we have to take over a broken LIGHTBULB, that's like those expensive shoes that cost $300 that come with a DVD telling you how to wear them! So someone broke a mercury thermometer and they can still walk, talk & chew gum? Well, my dad started smoking at the age of 7, not 17, that's SEVEN years of age, and never stopped till the day he died countless decades later of nothing remotely related to all that tobacco. Does that mean smoking is good for you? Re: Mercury Toxicity
Posted by:
Tamukha
()
Date: January 02, 2011 02:19PM Horsea,
All I'm saying is that it's important to have sense of proportion: a CFL bulb has four milligrams of mercury, which I may have already consumed in the last few months in something I ate or drank or put on. I am not consuming the mercury in the CFL bulb as long as it remains encased. In other words, I am not going to panic about a light bulb, which, when handled carefully, is safer than the thing my mom used to use to take my temperature, and safer than countless other things, like mercury-laced effluents from coal-fired electric plants which are reduced with the use of energy efficient light bulbs. No amount of mercury ingestion is safe, but less is better than a lot, and IMO there are aggregate benefits to many different aspects of life from using CFL bulbs which merit using them. Proportion. Re: Mercury Toxicity
Posted by:
Anonymous User
()
Date: January 02, 2011 05:12PM I want all those benefits less the mercury and I can get them with LED. I just have to pay through the nose  frustrating. Where are the readily available affordable lighting options?Re: Mercury Toxicity
Posted by:
Horsea
()
Date: January 02, 2011 10:21PM I don't know a thing about LED bulbs, coco. Where can I get some info on them? In the meantime, we are buying cases of the old ones. As far as the energy arguments go, I'd say we should use lighting judiciously. Re: Mercury Toxicity
Posted by:
Curator
()
Date: January 02, 2011 10:50PM Honestly, I just use candles allot of the time, I love candles, the long burning emergency ones last forever practically...I tend to only use electric lights when im reading, as its much easier to read by, better for my eyes too... --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oh, mirror in the sky What is love? Can the child within my heart rise above? Can I sail through the changing ocean tides? Can I handle the seasons of my life? Re: Mercury Toxicity
Posted by:
Anonymous User
()
Date: January 03, 2011 12:01AM Dude, I have issues with candles too. Lead wicks, paraffin vapours, or bee products. Drr.
I sourced some bulk soy wax and natural wicks the other day, I might make my own. Re: Mercury Toxicity
Posted by:
Curator
()
Date: January 03, 2011 12:09AM yeah, I have to agree on the paraffin vapors definitely, but from what ive read, they are only dangerous in large amounts in a un-ventilated room, and considering how badly every place ive lived in holds in the heat, I dont think there are many rooms with bad ventilation where I live, except the bathroom, I dont use them in there... I haven't heard of lead in wicks anymore, they are still doing that? crazy!!! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oh, mirror in the sky What is love? Can the child within my heart rise above? Can I sail through the changing ocean tides? Can I handle the seasons of my life? Re: Mercury Toxicity
Posted by:
KidRaw
()
Date: January 03, 2011 02:25PM Kiss Your 100-watt Lightbulb Goodbye
[www.mercurynews.com] "Mercury News" - get it 
This is interesting -
From what I read years ago, the fluorescent bulbs change brain waves or something, related to the flicker and the humming. (Just what I read years ago and I'm not going to take time to research it right now and provide resources, because I hope we don't have to provide resources for every sentence and word we type) But I just plain hate the color from the new bulbs and love the soft glo from the regular lightbulbs, and I love the heat they give off in the winter, especially with the small lamp sitting on my desk, and if the government can tell us what lightbulb we have to use, then we are not a free country. Re: Mercury Toxicity
Posted by:
Anonymous User
()
Date: January 03, 2011 02:35PM Dude, it's about the energy crisis we are in. Electricity for lights comes from coal, nuclear, etc. Think of the big picture. I prefer that sort of light too but sometimes you just have to suck it up for the greater good.
Do you have kids? Well, I do and I would rather people "suffer" with being told what kind of lights to use and the ensuing cold bulbs and not quite right light than have my children suffer with air polluted by our greedy consumption. If people really don't want to change, they can choose put a wind generator and some solar panels on their roof and make their own clean power. Until then, we all gotta share. Energy, air, responsibility. It's not that big of a deal, LED's will catch up eventually. Re: Mercury Toxicity
Posted by:
Tamukha
()
Date: January 03, 2011 03:31PM KidRaw,
I don't know where you are getting CFL bulbs, but mine give out a lovely amber-whitish glow. Also, have to laugh at your conflation of government mandated energy efficient technologies and lack of freedom, as though they are related. Clearly, you have no experience with what a truly captive nation looks like. Hint: no one cares about limiting pollution, LOL! Re: Mercury Toxicity
Posted by:
KidRaw
()
Date: January 03, 2011 05:41PM coco Wrote:
------------------------------------------------------- > I would rather > people "suffer" with being told what kind of > lights to use and the ensuing cold bulbs and not > quite right light than have my children suffer > with air polluted by our greedy consumption. The fact is that the mercury lightbulbs are unhealthier and give off more 'pollution' than the regular lightbulbs, so the air is being polluted by the power elite's solution to the "energy crisis", not 'our' consumption. (I'm comparing the Mercury lightbulbs to regular lightbulbs, not LED's to regular lightbulbs) "Greedy consumption"? So it's okay for the Al Gore elites to pollute like crazy and have a humungo carbon footprint from private jets, etc, but the 'little people' can't use a regular lightbulbs. Re: Mercury Toxicity
Posted by:
KidRaw
()
Date: January 03, 2011 05:55PM Tamukha Wrote:
------------------------------------------------------- > KidRaw, > > have to laugh at your conflation of government > mandated energy efficient technologies and lack of > freedom, as though they are related. The fact is that the Mercury Lightbulbs that are "government mandated energy efficient technologies" are more polluting and much unhealthier than regular lightbulbs and we are being FORCED to compromise our health by government. And that is the premise of my thread here. And the Lightbulb Situation as a Loss of Freedom Issue parallels the Almond Issue - where the 'Government Mandated' that all Almonds in America Must Now be Cooked. Compromising our Health, Losing Our freedom, through Force. It's called - HEALTH FREEDOM I thought we Raw Foodists were all about HEALTH FREEDOM.... Re: Mercury Toxicity
Posted by:
KidRaw
()
Date: January 03, 2011 06:44PM HEALTH FREEDOM Fighter, Mike Adams, agrees with me --
Compact Fluorescent Lights Dumping Mercury Directly into Landfills [www.naturalnews.com] This is interesting - "CFL bulbs also emit high levels of radiation, causing migraine headaches, sleep abnormalities, fatigue, and other health problems. Unlike traditional incandescent bulbs, CFL bulbs emit excessive "dirty energy," or electromagnetic frequencies (EMFs), a fact that has received little attention from those on the mainstream "green" bandwagon who continue to endorse CFLs as the solution to the alleged climate change crisis. The voltage reduction technology in CFL bulbs causes high amounts of EMF pollution to be emitted. Similar to the kind released from mobile phone antennas and food irradiation machinery, EMF radiation poses serious health threats to humans who are exposed to excessive amounts of it. CFL bulbs have been found to greatly increase EMF exposure as they are often the most significant EMF polluters in homes that use them." I'm definitely not using the CFL bulbs. ********************* Compact Fluorescent Lights May Harm Health [www.naturalnews.com] But the LED sounds better, so I'll check them out -- "Light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs, on the other hand, are a much safer alternative to CFL bulbs. Those who wish to transition from traditional incandescent bulbs to something that uses less energy would do well to investigate LED alternatives. Although they are typically more expensive than the other technologies due to limited acceptance in the mainstream, they are better for the environment than CFLs and emit far less EMF pollution." Re: Mercury Toxicity
Posted by:
Anonymous User
()
Date: January 03, 2011 09:39PM Seriously, this is what gets your knickers in a knot? I can think of so many other things to dedicate my energy to.
The local eco shop told me to go to the hardware store for LED's, said they are going to start getting affordable bulbs if they don't have them already. I am Beyond thrilled, I'll head over next week and talk to their lighting people. What rockin' news. Re: Mercury Toxicity
Posted by:
Tamukha
()
Date: January 04, 2011 12:18AM KidRaw,
There is no evidence in Mike Adams's article about the supposed greater polluting effects and other health side effects of [non-broken]CFL bulbs. Sorry, unless there's a link to some kind of scientific data verifying what he insinuates, I'm not going take his word for it. The links footnoted at the bottom of his article, as expected, don't support his assertions. I am usually a fan of his site, btw. "Health Freedom," shmelth freedom--I am as concerned about the health of the planet as I am about the health of my household. As someone whose family has actual experience with dictatorships, please be assured the government's asking us to reduce coal emissions by using household appliances and energy methods that ration electricity is not a threat to your freedom. Though I would argue that enslavement to filthy, archaic energy systems is. coco, The trend is towards LEDs so they should become increasingly easier to find. I bet Government Canada is pushing more energy efficient modes of lighting, etc. The wicked despots!  Re: Mercury Toxicity
Posted by:
Curator
()
Date: January 04, 2011 01:11AM awesome coco  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oh, mirror in the sky What is love? Can the child within my heart rise above? Can I sail through the changing ocean tides? Can I handle the seasons of my life? Re: Mercury Toxicity
Posted by:
Anonymous User
()
Date: January 04, 2011 02:15AM The conservatives are in right now and eco anything is not really their strong suit. BUT Canadians have made it known that it's a very important issue so they seem to be addressing the parts of it that also have to do with fiscal savings. A means to an end, I'm happy either way. Re: Mercury Toxicity
Posted by:
Tamukha
()
Date: January 04, 2011 08:58PM coco,
This, my dear, is the difference between your country and mine. Sorry, only registered users may post in this forum.
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