I had a spirited discussion with my sister (as discussions with my sister frequently are) about compact fluorescent lights (CFLs). She told me how one of hers recently quit on her so she tossed it in the trash. I pointed out how she needed to recycle it instead, as its mercury would seep into the ground once it reached the landfill.
“People aren’t that smart,” she argued. “No one’s going to go to the trouble.”
For once I couldn’t argue with her. Most people are totally clueless on the dangers of mercury poisoning and the need to properly dispose of these bulbs.
Today, I got one of my regular emails from the City of Raleigh’s recycling department. Its signature section had a reminder to recycle CFL bulbs at one of Wake County’s recycling centers. The problem with this is the Wake recycling centers only accept fluorescent bulbs on the first Saturday of the month. That’s one day a month to keep mercury out of our groundwater and thus our bodies.
I have CFLs everywhere but I know how to (and do) dispose of them properly. Given a choice between waiting a month to haul one’s dead bulbs to the dump versus dropping them in the trash, what do you think the average Joe is going to do? Why do we have only one day a month to safely dispose of CFL bulbs?
Wake County needs to make it far easier for its citizens to do the right thing and recycle their CFLs or else we may be looking at a far bigger problem in the future. You would think after a year of drought we would place more value on our water supply.
Wizard of Id speaks to the problem today. An official tells the king that an environmental group says the river has too much mercury in it. The king says, “How do they know?” The official says, “The doctors are taking temperatures with trout”. (You should check yesterday’s for a really bad pun 🙂 )
After the giggle, I thought, you know the king’s reaction is pretty typical… “How do they know?” I know, I have to do something and I will recycle. The news story that told me ran a couple of days and it was gone.
Our rivers and streams already have plenty of mercury in them from coal fired electric plants. Now here is another source that is well on its way to becoming ubiquitous. I think you are right, there needs to be an official program to keep the issue in front of people’s consciousness.