You are in immanent danger of being poisoned

[Guest guest]

There is a real immanent danger. Each one of

the fluorescent light bulbs that everyone is going to have to use by 2014

contain 5 milligrams of mercury - enough to contaminate 6,0000

gallons of water beyond what is considered a safe drinking level. At his

point, each one of those bulbs has to be treated as hazardous material.

Be sure to pay close attention to what you have to do if you break one of

these things in your home....If you break it on a rug, among other

things, they recommend you replace the rug...

Lynn..

..

Too Little, Too Late - Media

Discover Mercury in Fluorescent Bulbs

Journalists' beloved 'eco-friendly' lights now considered more

dangerous than originally thought, after government mandate required

their use.

By Nathan Burchfiel

Business & Media Institute

3/26/2008 2:13:04 PM

 

What is it about government mandates that curse innovation to failure?

 

Ethanol turned out to be more

environmentally harmful than the fossil fuels it was replacing via

federal mandate. Now scientists understand the “green” compact

fluorescent light bulbs to be dangerous because they contain

mercury.

While scientists couldn’t agree on

just how beneficial compact fluorescent light bulbs were, journalists on

network news shows had widely agreed that CFLs are a good thing.

“They last 10 times longer and they’re really

great for the environment,” Kris Connell of Real Simple Magazine said on

“The Early Show” March 10.

Each of the three broadcast networks has featured the bulbs and promoted

them as energy-efficient, environmentally friendly alternatives to

traditional incandescent bulbs. Journalists and others who support the

bulbs touted their benefits but rarely focused on the potential

risks.

NBC’s “Today” show featured the bulbs on its

“Today Goes Green” series Jan. 23, 2008, as one way average Americans can

adjust their lives to be more “environmentally friendly.”

“If every American home replaced just one

incandescent bulb with a CFL, in one year it would save enough energy to

light more than three million American homes and prevent greenhouse gas

emissions equivalent to those of more than 800,000 cars,” co-host

Meredith Vieira said.

“Replace just one of your standard light bulbs

with one of those curly compact fluorescent lamps,” Diane Sawyer

suggested on ABC’s “Good Morning America” April 20. “If every household

in the U.S. replaced just one standard bulb with a CFL tomorrow … it

would be like taking 2 million cars off the road.”

The Sept. 28, 2007, CBS “Early Show” even said

“going green,” including switching from traditional incandescent bulbs to

CFLs, was “good for your health, it’s good for your pocketbook, and it’s

good for the environment.”

The print media joined in. USA Today called them

the “wave of the future” in March 2007. The Los Angeles Times said in

April 2007 the bulbs “would be good for the environment and consumers’

pocketbooks.”

With this help from the media, proponents of the

bulbs convinced Congress to ban incandescent light bulbs in the energy

bill President Bush signed into law in Dec. 19, 2007. The bill increases

efficiency standards and effectively bans traditional bulbs by 2014, a

timetable considered a victory by

 

supporters like Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., who was the first to

introduce legislation that would ban the bulbs.

But what the media ignored or downplayed in the

run-up to the ban was that CFLs contain mercury, a highly toxic metal

infamous for its presence in thermometers. In the last two years, network

news shows mentioned the CFL-mercury link only seven times. Four of the

reports came after the incandescent ban had already been signed into

law.

Each CFL contains about 5 milligrams of mercury.

That’s enough for state environmental agencies to recommend complicated

and expensive cleanups for accidental bulb breaks in homes.

The

 

Maine Department of Environmental Protection recommended a woman

contact a hazardous waste cleanup company when a CFL broke on her child’s

bedroom carpet, sending the mercury level to more than six times the

“safe” limit. The crew estimated the cleanup would cost $2,000.

The Maine DEP no longer recommends such an expensive

cleanup process, but now suggests

a 14-point

cleanup plan. (link doesn't work.

Go to:

 

http://www.maine.gov/dep/rwm/homeowner/fluorescent.htm.

Pay particular attention to what you

need to do if the CFS breaks:

 

http://www.maine.gov/dep/rwm/homeowner/cflbreakcleanup.htm

The 5 milligrams of mercury are also enough

to contaminate 6,000 gallons of water beyond safe drinking levels,

according to a March 19

MSNBC.com article that “extrapolated from Stanford University

research on mercury.”

‘The Cost of Good Intentions’

But even when the networks mentioned the

mercury risk, reporters and other proponents of the bulbs downplayed the

significance, especially before the federal law was passed to ban

traditional bulbs.

Several NBC broadcasts characterized mercury in

CFLs as a “small amount.” ABC’s “Good Morning America” called it a “tiny

amount of mercury” on May 3, 2007. Unfortunately the “tiny amount”

multiplied by the millions of bulbs now in use could mean a lot of

contaminated water.

Brian Williams wrote the risk off as “the cost

of good intentions” on the NBC “Nightly News” March 20, 2008. But

“Nightly News” correspondent John Larson put it in a more accurate

context, reporting that mercury is “one of the most poisonous substances

on Earth. Break one of these in your home and you’ve got a

problem.”

“The federal government has an 11-step

do-it-yourself cleanup plan that looks a lot like a toxic waste cleanup,

because that’s what it is,” Larson reported. “But it has an even larger

problem: where to put the 400 million CFLs being sold a year when they

burn out. Not in the trash – too poisonous. For the time being, take CFLs

to a hazardous waste disposal center.”

But even well-intentioned recycling programs

apparently aren’t working. Meredith Vieira on the January 23 “Today”

downplayed mercury concerns by noting that “Home Depot will take them

back.” But she should have talked to Patricia Stoll, a Ventura County,

Calif., woman who wrote a letter to the editor of The New York Times Jan.

17, 2008.

“When I tried to return the bulbs to Home Depot,

I was asked to send them directly to the manufacturer,” Stoll wrote. “In

frustration, I just threw them into the trash.”

Home Depot could not be reached for comment.

 

Even environmentalists have trouble being

diligent with the bulbs. The New York Times profiled Cynthia DuBose, a

self-proclaimed “fanatical environmentalist,” on Jan. 10, 2008. DuBose

started using CFLs in the late 1980s. But she just threw them in the

trash until “five or six years ago” when she finally found out they were

dangerous.

“Fanatical environmentalists” and

well-intentioned average Americans already struggle to keep up with

complicated and inconvenient recycling methods. And CFLs have yet to

catch on with Americans less interested in troubling themselves with

recycling.

The Solution: More Government!

The media focus on the threat of mercury has

increased since the ban on incandescents was signed into law.

But now that the media have discovered CFLs pose

serious environmental threats that will only increase as more Americans

are forced to buy them, they’re not calling for a second look at the ban.

 

Journalists’ advice to Americans concerned about

the health and environmental threat posed by CFL bulbs? “Just don’t drop

it,” NBC’s John Larson said during his March 20 report. “Energy advocates

agree your new CFLs are still overall the right thing to do for the

planet.”

Now proponents of the bulbs are using the

mercury danger to push for even more government involvement. The bill

that banned incandescent bulbs also forces the Department of Energy to

“find ways to minimize the amount of mercury in compact fluorescent

bulbs.”

“And although one dot of mercury might not seem

so bad, almost 300 million compact fluorescents were sold in the United

States last year,” The New York Times wrote in a Feb. 17, 2008,

editorial. “Businesses and government recyclers need to start working on

more efficient ways to deal with that added mercury.”

Other reports pointed out that a few recycling

programs do exist, including one run by a light bulb manufacturer. “For

now, Osram Sylvania is offering its customers packaging to send the

compact fluorescents back for recycling and prevent the mercury from

leaking into the environment,” The Washington Post reported Jan. 20,

2008.

The reports didn’t address the carbon and

mercury “footprint” created by the return programs – boxes for shipping

and fuels to power the automobiles and airplanes that carry the

burned-out bulbs, on top of the cost and environmental impact of

recycling itself.

 

 

http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2008/20080326103035.aspx