Doing something good for the planet doesn't always involve a major lifestyle change. Starting with something as small as a light bulb in your home is a great way to begin greening your world.
With the average US household using 45 light bulbs, switching to something more economical than the rapidly becoming, old fashioned incandescent can add up to some decent savings. But how to make your light bulbs green?
Recent years have seen the rise of compact fluorescent lights, CFLs, as the next generation of light bulbs.
In the early years, CFL bulbs had some strong negatives to balance their economy. The bulb was known for its sickly blue colouring and high price tag. The new generation of CFL bulbs have corrected their colouring problems and now often produce better light than the incandescent bulbs in blind tests.
The prices have also come down for CFLs from the once $25 per bulb (average household bulb) to around $5 for the same bulb today. One might think that these are the light bulbs green people would endorse now. This is not necessarily the case.
Phosphor, the chemical compound inside the CFL which once excited converts ultraviolet radiation into visible light, is the main ingredient in the bulb, but CFLs also contain toxic mercury. The EPA estimates that about 5 milligrams (or enough to cover the head of a pen) of mercury is used to increase the bulbs efficiency.
The addition of mercury is what makes the CFLs problematic. You can't just trash a CFL light bulb the way you would an incandescent. In fact Energy Star, a great endorser of CFLs, has an elaborate list of things do to if you should break a bulb in your home.
A broken CFL bulb will immediately release mercury into the air. The resulting initial discomfort of dizziness and nausea are only part of your concerns. Breathing in mercury can cause lifelong damage to the central nervous system.
Cleaning up a broken CFL bulb reads like a hazmat operation and this according to the highly respected Energy Star. Remember, these are glass bulb casings just like incandescent bulbs. Are CFL light bulbs green? Maybe not so much after all.
The future of eco friendly light bulbs may very well be in light emitting diodes or LED bulbs. LED bulbs are now where CFL bulbs were a few years ago. They are expensive, about $25 for an average household bulb and are just now perfecting their colouring abilities, producing a light closer to daylight.
Energy-wise LEDs use only 2-10 watts of electricity (a third of CFLs) and last up to 60,000 hours (6 times a CFL). LEDs run cool (warm to the touch) and are solid state construction which makes them eminently more durable than either CFLs or incandescent bulbs.
CFLs are rated according to being turned onoff once every 11 hours. If you turn your lights off more than that, your usable hours will go down. LEDs on the other hand can be turned on and off as much as you like without having any effect on their lifespan. There is also no warm up time for an LED bulb.
LEDs seem like the greener choice for all but the price. But to buy something based on price alone is doing yourself a disservice. LED bulbs are still growing as an industry and hopefully will soon replace the toxic and sometimes dangerous CFL bulbs. So who would buy LEDs, someone who wants their light bulbs green, energy efficient and long lasting, that's who.
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