Instead, dispose of it as hazardous waste. If your bulb dies but isn’t broken, most municipalities require Incinerator chute burning them will only release their mercury into the air. (This conveniently ducks the issue of what to do with theĭon’t wash mercury-contaminated clothing or fabric, EPA Pitch that into a sealed plastic bag (oops, glass jar), and immediately walk it Must be vacuumed, EPA says to immediately empty its now-contaminated bag and Tape (like duct tape) to pick up any tiny pieces or powderlike residue. If bulb debris ends up on carpeting, we’re to use sticky Mercury vapor into the air and, potentially, other rooms). Vacuum (which will not only become contaminated but also forcefully spew Where a bulb has broken on a hard surface, like a linoleumįloor, EPA instructs us not to use a broom (which will become contaminated) or Hurt prefers EPA’s alternative option: Put broken CFLs in a Time you lift its lid “you’ll get a face full. True.” So if you bag a broken CFL and toss it in the kitchen trash can, every Plastic bag, the mercury goes right through it. Sure enough,” he found, “if you put a broken bulb in a Lab found evidence that plastic wouldn’t securely trap mercury, “and we tried Plastic doesn’t work, Hurt told me this afternoon. What should you do with the debris and wet towels? EPA tells us to seal With a piece of cardboard and then swab the affected area with a wet paper The room without passing near the broken bulb. More cautious websites, like EPA’s, recommend airing a mercury-tainted Substantially more mercury than a palm-sized CFL. Over work benches or those ugly circular tubes needed to light some Issue of breakage in bigger fluorescent lights, such as the long tubes used And when asked what to do aboutīroken CFLs, most punt and simply tell consumers that the modern ones release I’ve read a lot of websites by municipal governments andĮven the Environmental Protection Agency. Trip, those CFLs all go crashing onto a hard floor. So imagine now that you’re carefully carrying a handful ofīulbs to install in lamps around the home and pooch gets underfoot. Times the federally recommended safe upper exposure limit for children. Ventilation, air concentrations reached 2 micrograms per m 3 - or 10 Of mercury into a 500 meter 3 room to simulate a CFL break. These researchers cite data from a study that released 1 mg Report by Robert Hurt and his colleagues at Brown But even the CFLs’Ĭontents might pose concerns, at least under some circumstances, according to a Milligrams of mercury today’s CFLs contain 5 mg or less. Those old thermometers typically contained about 500 The most likelyĮxplanation: A thermometer broke there years earlier. Offgassing from a meter-square section of flooring. Tainting in one apartment traced to mercury Story I wrote several years ago about attempts to diagnose the sources of high Impregnate surfaces and eventually reenter the air. Most of a CFL’s mercury vapor exits a broken bulb within a few days, it can Mercury contamination can prove quite persistent. HANDLE WITH CARE Each of these energy-efficient lights contains a pinch of toxic mercury, which can pollute the environment if a bulb breaks.
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