Light bulbs

Conversations have moved from your mother reminding you to "turn the light out when you leave the room" to "what type of light bulbs do you use?"

As a part of the sermon series (if you want to listen, check out the April 25 audio file) I mentioned previously, we were challenged to change five light bulbs in our house from incandescent to CFL light bulbs. Of course, the U.S. phase out of the incandescent bulbs is coming, but the energy savings argument is compelling. From a piece in Fast Company:

Compact fluorescent bulbs emit the same light as classic incandescents but use 75% or 80% less electricity.

What that means...

• If every one of 110 million American households bought just one ice-cream-cone bulb (CFL), took it home, and screwed it in the place of an ordinary 60-watt bulb, the energy saved would be enough to power a city of 1.5 million people.
• One bulb swapped out, enough electricity saved to power all the homes in Delaware and Rhode Island.
• In terms of oil not burned, or greenhouse gases not exhausted into the atmosphere, one bulb is equivalent to taking 1.3 million cars off the roads.

I've heard this plea before and ignored it, I find the light from florescent to be harsh, not as appealing as the reveal light bulbs I have in most of our lights. Yet, this time I thought why not. So I went home, counted up the various bulbs and wattage's and came up with eight lights that we could change.

Home with my newly purchased lights, I switched out our light bulbs. Pleased and intrigued by these new bulbs I sat down to Google how to dispose of incandescent bulbs. Ah, how quickly we trade one problem for another. Green at Work reveals,

"I'm afraid the answer is - not much. Most redundant technologies end up as landfill and I'm afraid that your incandescent light bulb's are included in that. Use them up - then wrap them in paper and dispose of them in the general waste bin."

Well fiddlesticks, now I have eight working lights that I'm adding to a landfill. Smashing, exactly what I was hoping to do... but then it gets a little more messy as you read on and ponder what to do with the CFL bulbs when they eventually burn out,

"Things get a little more complicated when it come to disposing of your new energy efficient compact fluorescent (CFL's). As they contain mercury throwing them in the regular bin is a big no no as the mercury can pollute the soil and water. You'll need to dispose of them as part of your local council's Household Chemical Clean-up."

Awesome. I've changed eight light bulbs, calculated my savings, and its turns out I'm contributing to another environmental issue. Hmmm, not exactly the impact I was hoping to have on the environment from this little exercise.

So is it worth it? Do you think changing your bulbs before they burn out is a good idea?

There are of course LED lights on the market now. The comparisons are slow in coming as they aren't as widely available yet, but they lack the mercury issue of CFLs. So will we all be switching CFLs for LEDs soon?

Today as the sermon series wrapped the congregation was asked how many people went home and changed their bulbs as a result of the call to action. Less than 10 folks out of nearly 80+ at the service raised their hands. Is it apathy? Is it cost? What keeps us from making these small choices?