What Are the Dangers of Fluorescent Bulbs?

You know those curly-shaped light bulbs that are supposed to save the planet from global warming because they use less electricity than the standard incandescent bulbs we've been using since the turn of the 20th Century? Well, it turns out that the new mercury-filled fluorescent bulbs bring environmental and biological hazards of their own whose costs have not been fully addressed. So while you're counting the pennies you're saving with the new politically charged illumination, consider the case of Brandy Bridges of Maine, who was charged $2,000 in clean-up costs when she broke a compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulb.

Bridges' story

• Brandy Bridges broke a recently purchased CFL bulb in her home and immediately contacted local safety officials, which led her up the public health ladder to the Maine Derpartment of Environmental Protection. In most areas of Bridges' home, DEP found mercury contamination well below the state's safe level of 300 nanograms per cubic meter. But at site of the bulb break, mercury levels jumped to more than 60 times the level considered safe. On her daughter's toys, the mercury level measured 556 ng/m3. She contacted an environmental cleanup company which told her it would cost more than $2,000 for the cleanup and her insurance company wouldn't pay for the replacement cost of the carpet, toys and furniture.

Dangerous stuff

• According to the federal Department of Environmental Resources, mercury is categorized as "highly toxic" and harmful in both its liquid and vapor forms. Airborn mercury is highly toxic when inhaled. Outside, mercury presents little direct threat because it dissipates quickly. Indoors, mercury can reach dangerous levels from something as little as a broken thermometer or fluorescent light bulb.

  Symptoms of mercury poisoning can include changes in personality, motor skills, vision and memory. Memory loss is particularly problematic because it may be permanent. In addition, short-term exposure to elemental mercury can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, lung irritation, increased blood pressure, and skin and eye irritation.

The fish that we eat

• Mercury gets into the air as a by-product of burning coal, oil, or wood as fuel or when mercury is incinerated. Once airborn, mercury can fall to the ground with rain and snow, contaminating soil or water. Lakes and rivers can also be contaminated by direct discharge of mercury-laden industrial or municipal waste into the water. In water, mercury works its way up the food chain from plankton to larger fish, which are then caught and consumed. While there has been no large-scale incidents of mercury poisonings in the United States, there have been several outbreaks from the consumption of contaminated fish in Japan and Canada. In the United States, the EPA issued fish-eating warnings more than 2,000 times in 41 states during the 1990s.

The disposal problem

• Using Maine's standards, which are under study for possible adoption by the EPA, it takes 16,667 cubic meters of soil to safely contain all the mercury in a single CFL. The standard allows 300 nanograms of mercury per cubic meter. With an estimated four billion light receptacles in the United States and assuming the entire United States goes fluorescent, it would require about 643 square miles of landfill, 23 miles deep, to safely dispose of all the mercury contained in those four billion bulbs. That is roughly equal to the land mass of Los Angeles and Atlanta combined, assuming all the bulbs are properly disposed. If they are just thrown in the trash, landfills across the country could become contaminated by mercury.

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