Energy saving light bulbs are the typical type of thing governments usually do; when things go wrong, they patch it and then patch it some more until eventually it falls apart. It’s like painting rust; the same goes for energy saving light bulbs, it’s a quick fix to spending money on decent alternatives to energy.
The idea of an energy saving light bulb is good, until you look a little closer. Besides the concerns of these bulbs increasing your risk of skin cancer, causing migraines, possibly triggering epileptic seizers in people with photosensitive epilepsy, increase skin rashes if a person has a light sensitive skin, cause discomfort for people suffering from lupus (a condition which causes swelling and pain as the body attacks its own tissue) and so forth, the light bulb itself contains enough mercury to be a cause for concern.
The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) suggests the following: if one of these bulbs break in your home, don’t vacuum the shards up; rather sweep them away wearing rubber gloves or pick up the shards using sticky tape as protection from the mercury. Also make sure no one inhales any dust, and seal the broken pieces in a plastic bag, to dispose of at a council dump and NOT in a normal household bin!
The mercury content in an average energy saving light bulb is no more than 5 milligrams – and would fit on the tip of a ballpoint pen – but it’s still a hazardous material that could poison landfills (meaning it will eventually end up in our drinking water) or directly cause health problems in the event that one of these are broken. For this reason, used energy saving light bulbs need to be recycled rather than going in the bin and since this is a temporary solution to a much bigger problem, we need to continue looking for alternative sources of energy and keep on pushing for funding to further develop alternatives that are not more harmful to the environment than the current ones are.
