No Mercury in Your LEDs
What’s the big deal about mercury, anyway? Thanks to broken thermometers, I have wiled away at least several hours of my life rolling little balls of multiplying and dividing quicksilver around in my hands, chasing them around the bed covers, losing them on the floor, breathing their fumes deep into my lungs. And I’ve suffered no ill efablucratnts. I mean, zablanz ramacrans. Umm, help? Doctor, how many brain cells have I sacrificed to liquid mercury? Whatever. It was worth it because slippery shiny mercury is fun! Drkhdlkh!
So apparently, even though the epically heroic (handsome, winsome, fetching and kind) compact fluorescent light bulb contains an amount of mercury that is only equal to the size of the tip of a ballpoint pen, there are certain sayers of nay out there who claim that this small amount is still too large. Mercury will poison our homes (they say) and our planet and will bring us all to ruin. But is anybody listening to them? Not really. This is what is fun about environmentalists; they make histrionic predictions of doom - based on scientific fact - that everyone ignores until Al Gore makes a documentary.
Maybe you can see the point of these marginalized anti-CFC militants when you consider that the entire continent of Australia is banning incandescents by the year 2010, and Canada and California will be incandescentless 2012. The European Union is considering a ban on the incandescent light bulb, and a US Senate Committee is working on a bill that would ban them in all of the states by 2017.
That adds up to a whole lot of people who will soon be legally required to put little ballpoint pen sized pieces of mercury in various outlets in their houses (or to stop reading after sundown). After 8,000 or so hours, most of these light bulbs will go straight into the trash. How many people do you think will actually go out of their ways to recycle the bulbs correctly? How many will make that extra trip to IKEA with the single bulb riding in the back of their Suburbans? And what will the environmental impacts of all of those extra trips to IKEA be? And why are all of the people who work there so aloof and intimidating with their purple hair and tattoos?
But wait! I have a solution to the environmental disaster caused by the first solution to the original environmental disaster. It will cost you even more money. Are you surprised? It’s the Light Emitting Diode bulb. (yay applause hooray)
An LED light bulb will last 50,000 hours (which is basically the life expectancy of a cat) and will save you $100 in electricity costs over the life of the bulb.
Now, if you do a little bit of math, you will realize that an LED that takes 14 years to realize a $100 savings is probably not going to be what anyone could really call “cheap.” In fact, the 1-watt LED (meant to replace a 40-watt normal bulb) will run you $40. The “premium” 10-watt bulb (to take the place of your 100-watt normal one) is only $99. You can buy these at ecoleds.com.
There is only one small drawback (other than the fact that it costs 50 times more than the bulbs you are currently using). The LED bulb is a “directional light” – a spotlight, which according to Mike Adams, founder of ecoleds.com, makes it “very useful for dynamic lighting, accent lighting or projecting light on a certain part of the room.” You can’t really stick it in a lamp. Unless you happen to be very fond of that one part of your ceiling and you want to show it off.
You might, though, consider shining your environmentally friendly eco LED onto the signed “Certificate of CO2 Emission Reductions” (suitable for framing) issued by Mike Adams and company when you make a purchase. The certificate “allows you to publicly display the number of tons of CO2 you are preventing from being introduced into the environment.”
Sadly, it doesn’t say a thing about mg of mercury not used. But you know that it’s not in there. And, at least when your LED burns out (around the time your three-year-old graduates high school) you can smash it on the floor or burn it in the back yard along with your bald tires or just toss it in the trash. Just like in the good old days.
What’s the big deal about mercury, anyway? Thanks to broken thermometers, I have wiled away at least several hours of my life rolling little balls of multiplying and dividing quicksilver around in my hands, chasing them around the bed covers, losing them on the floor, breathing their fumes deep into my lungs. And I’ve suffered no ill efablucratnts. I mean, zablanz ramacrans. Umm, help? Doctor, how many brain cells have I sacrificed to liquid mercury? Whatever. It was worth it because slippery shiny mercury is fun! Drkhdlkh!
So apparently, even though the epically heroic (handsome, winsome, fetching and kind) compact fluorescent light bulb contains an amount of mercury that is only equal to the size of the tip of a ballpoint pen, there are certain sayers of nay out there who claim that this small amount is still too large. Mercury will poison our homes (they say) and our planet and will bring us all to ruin. But is anybody listening to them? Not really. This is what is fun about environmentalists; they make histrionic predictions of doom - based on scientific fact - that everyone ignores until Al Gore makes a documentary.
Maybe you can see the point of these marginalized anti-CFC militants when you consider that the entire continent of Australia is banning incandescents by the year 2010, and Canada and California will be incandescentless 2012. The European Union is considering a ban on the incandescent light bulb, and a US Senate Committee is working on a bill that would ban them in all of the states by 2017.
That adds up to a whole lot of people who will soon be legally required to put little ballpoint pen sized pieces of mercury in various outlets in their houses (or to stop reading after sundown). After 8,000 or so hours, most of these light bulbs will go straight into the trash. How many people do you think will actually go out of their ways to recycle the bulbs correctly? How many will make that extra trip to IKEA with the single bulb riding in the back of their Suburbans? And what will the environmental impacts of all of those extra trips to IKEA be? And why are all of the people who work there so aloof and intimidating with their purple hair and tattoos?
But wait! I have a solution to the environmental disaster caused by the first solution to the original environmental disaster. It will cost you even more money. Are you surprised? It’s the Light Emitting Diode bulb. (yay applause hooray)
An LED light bulb will last 50,000 hours (which is basically the life expectancy of a cat) and will save you $100 in electricity costs over the life of the bulb.
Now, if you do a little bit of math, you will realize that an LED that takes 14 years to realize a $100 savings is probably not going to be what anyone could really call “cheap.” In fact, the 1-watt LED (meant to replace a 40-watt normal bulb) will run you $40. The “premium” 10-watt bulb (to take the place of your 100-watt normal one) is only $99. You can buy these at ecoleds.com.
There is only one small drawback (other than the fact that it costs 50 times more than the bulbs you are currently using). The LED bulb is a “directional light” – a spotlight, which according to Mike Adams, founder of ecoleds.com, makes it “very useful for dynamic lighting, accent lighting or projecting light on a certain part of the room.” You can’t really stick it in a lamp. Unless you happen to be very fond of that one part of your ceiling and you want to show it off.
You might, though, consider shining your environmentally friendly eco LED onto the signed “Certificate of CO2 Emission Reductions” (suitable for framing) issued by Mike Adams and company when you make a purchase. The certificate “allows you to publicly display the number of tons of CO2 you are preventing from being introduced into the environment.”
Sadly, it doesn’t say a thing about mg of mercury not used. But you know that it’s not in there. And, at least when your LED burns out (around the time your three-year-old graduates high school) you can smash it on the floor or burn it in the back yard along with your bald tires or just toss it in the trash. Just like in the good old days.
posted by kyle at 4:22 PM
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