The secret that will destroy us all

Wow, I really didn't know that. In my community they give these light bulbs away for free every month from the utility company. I wont be getting anymore of these, I'll just stick with the old light bulbs.

Ok I have a large bottle full of mercury my dad gave me. He played with this stuff and collected it as a boy. He would pour it into his hands and mess with it for hours on end.

How can he be so healthy at 65 and have played with this stuff? I wouldn't dare take it out of the bottle!

I do have to say we just bought a house that has 166 can lights in which the builder had 100w regular bulbs in every single one. We just finished replacing all 166 with energy efficient ones. I guess we'll see if I kill over. I lived with a mouth full of it for 18yrs until about 5 years ago when I had them replaced.

I have bought three of these stupid things. They only lasted less than six months each at 6$ each. All of the regular light bulbs I got at the same time and cost aound .70$ have lasted twice as long. That alone is enough not to buy them.

Originally posted by MegaCurious
If you really wanted to save energy, you'd be using OLED light bulbs anyways, not those things.

Star! Absolutely Correct! I just wished OLED's would hurry up and become mainstream. Sure, they are a different kind of light, but the technology is getting better and better and the colors of the light are becoming more natural.

In case your wondering whose idea this was, it was Bush who got into bed with GE and forged a plan. Actually, GE is a very corrupt company as are several of the Biggies. Example, they have a technology or widget that everyone uses, but the Patent is about to go public. So, they get the EPA or some hot dog in the Government to BAN the product for envioronmental reasons or some other garbage. There is a big government whoodidoo and BAM its banned. Now what are we gonna do that they Banned our Widget. NOT TO WORRY, the same company that lobbied for it to be banned, has the Replacement Technology under a NEW patent! Freon anyone?

I just love this site, I get the best information here.

Here I thought I was doing a great thing for the environment. I have quite a few of these bulbs and when these incandescent bulbs blow in my new apartment I was planning on using them. Best laid plans!

I mean this is ridiculous! Don't these people do any research. First the issues on corn production for bio fuel and now this! Is there going to be some big revelation that all the time I take to recycle everything possible is a FRAUD too.

UNREAL!

I first found out about this about 3 years back.

I was living in an Apartment (luckily) and my cat knocked over a lamp that had one of these in it.

So I researched "how to clean it up" and got exactly what you posted.


My first thought was OMG!

I went out and bought a dust devil, fixed a bag around the dust devil and vacuumed it up. Then through out the dust devil. And then, approximately 3 months later, we moved.

I was astonished that these so called "eco friendly" light bulbs were ECO NIGHTMARES!

I will never buy another one as long as I live. I know others have to, but I have stocked up.

And for those of you who say candles should be fine.... unless it's a soy candle, you are releasing toxins as well....

wow...i started buying these cause i thought they were better, no more! thank you for the info.

GREAT! I have them in every light socket in the house and a spare 4 pack in the closet! Not to bad a deal though. Not like lightbulbs went up like say GOLD. So time to replace all these bulbs of death and switch back to the "Greener" bulbs..

S&F for sure.

[edit on 5-9-2009 by Red Dawn 09]

reply to post by skeetontheconspiracy

ANd these are supposed to be a "green" product?

That's outrageous and appalling. Now I wonder what other "green" products are also incredibly bad for our environment?

It is all about making money for a favored Corporation. I have not bought them but I imagine they are MORE expensive than regular bulbs.

The other product that is very bad for the environment is "bio-fuel" According to David Pimental of Cornell University, ethanol production from corn requires 29% more energy input than it produces in output. Internationally they are cutting down rainforest
to plant sugar to make bio-fuel.

That's outrageous and appalling. Now I wonder what other "green" products are also incredibly bad for our environment?

It is all about making money for a favored Corporation. I have not bought them but I imagine they are MORE expensive than regular bulbs.



They actually sell for downwards of 3 times cheaper than regular bulbs for length of use.

Wow, I'm amazed at how many people didn't already know this...

The title says "the secret that will destoy us all", this is not a secret by any means. This has been known since the bulb was invented. Also, there is a typo in the title, Destoy = Destroy.

A simple wikipedia search would have told you the same things:

en.wikipedia.org...

Like all fluorescent lamps, CFLs contain mercury, which complicates their disposal.

CFLs, like all fluorescent lamps, contain small amounts of mercury[41][42] as vapor inside the glass tubing. Most CFLs contain 3 – 5 mg per bulb, with some brands containing as little as 1 mg.[43][44] Even these small amounts are a concern for landfills and waste incinerators where the mercury from lamps may be released and contribute to air and water pollution. In the U.S., lighting manufacturer members of the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) have voluntarily capped the amount of mercury used in CFLs.[45] In the EU the same cap is required by the RoHS law.

In areas with coal-fired power stations, the use of CFLs saves on mercury emissions when compared to the use of incandescent bulbs. This is due to the reduced electrical power demand, reducing in turn the amount of mercury released by coal as it is burned.[46][47].

In the United States, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimated that if all 270 million compact fluorescent lamps sold in 2007 were sent to landfill sites, that this would represent around 0.13 tons, or 0.1% of all U.S. emissions of mercury (around 104 tons) that year.[48]

...but just like it says, using these light bulbs actually reduces mercury emissions from power coal-fired power plants.

Until someone invents an LED light bulb that has the same amount of candle power as a CFL, for the same cheap price, CFL's will probably be the norm. CFL's don't work without mercury, so if someone finds a way to make them work without mercury they will probably be rich.

Just so you know, LCD computer screens and TV's use fluorescent light bulbs with mercury also. So factor that into your equation.

It won't destroy us all, but it could make us sick.

I would be more worried about the dental amalgam controversy. I literally eat mercury for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.


[edit on 5-9-2009 by 0neKnows]

Well, thanks.. now I know where to get easy mercury for my insane experiments. I'm not kidding.

Wanna know something funny? When I worked for home depot, they made all the cashiers give out free mercury tainted bulbs to EVERY customer we checked out, some got more than one out of greed, but we had boxes of these things to give away.

If your eating and drinking foods with high fructose corn syrup then your already ingesting mercury. Not many people crying out about that. Studies are also showing that small amounts of mercury can lead to autoimmune diseases.

It's not the light bulbs I'm worried about. I even changed a lot of my bulbs over to the fluorescent bulbs. My electricity bill still went up.

157.5 grams of mercury isn't very much mercury. Especially for 31,000 bulbs.

Older switches and thermostats will contain several grams of mercury each.

We've been living with mercury for a long time, and this sure as hell doesn't get me worked up.

Generations used to play with the stuff, bring it to school and roll it around in our hands, and it was no big deal.

And as heavy as mercury is, 157 grams is very little.

All florescent bulbs... cute energy savers and the old long straight ones contain mercury. They are all dangerous, but not to the extent the writer claims.
I refuse to buy any of them... for a good reason... and its not about the mercury..

Tremendous advances are being made in high power white LED lighting. I think that in a relatively short period of time LEDs will replace ALL lighting worldwide. They are much more energy efficient than either florescent or incandescent, last 10 to 15 years and to my knowledge are never hazardous to the environment.

I was reading about this recently. The webpage I read said you'd have to break about eight CFL's in a small unaired room and breath in hard all at once for there even to be a short term risk.

That said, I do think they should do more to label them properly, all the CFL's I have don't have the slightest warning on them, and don't tell you how to dispose of them correctly.

I see the risk to individuals as very low, about as dangerous as spilling some other household chemicals, but I am a little worried about how many of these will end up in landfills due to people not knowing or having a way to dispose of them correctly. How would all that mercury in landfills work out? I'm sure that's going to be a problem.

I hope that these will only be a very short term solution. LEDs seem to be the way to go, even more energy saving, and less risk involved.

Indeed these are absolutely horrible. And when they burn out people toss them in the trash. Yup there just wonderful for the environment. The good news is the new LED bulbs are almost to the point where they will make the replacement for incandescents and there power savings is closer to 90 % !

I'll keep using cfl's. The mercury emissions that cfl use saves exceeds the amount of mercury vapor in cfls. The whole thing has reached a level of paranoia that is ridiculous. We've been using fluorescent bulbs since the 1930's, and all of a sudden mercury in the becomes an issue? C'mon!

reply to post by Pinkarella


That's what keeps happening at my house, too. Except my mom keeps buying more and more of them. What's kind of funny about it is that they seem to go out quicker in areas where there are more bulbs in use (like in one of our bathrooms, where there are at least 8 bulbs in a row), than in the lamps with a single bulb.