[Announce] lights - where best to recycle round flourescents?

Sat Jul 14 17:03:42 MDT 2007

Good idea, Dan.

  I have a suggestion or two I'll list below, but first this important message:

  Regarding Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs):

  There are currently two distinct styles available on the market, one being slightly more expensive than the other. One has the glass tubes exposed; the other has the glass enclosed in a plastic 'bulb'.

  For safety's sake, I recommend that you only purchase those with the protective plastic 'bulb'. 

  If you drop the exposed type and it breaks you will be releasing its mercury into your immediate environment. 

  If this occurs, DO NOT vacuum up the debris. The air and the heat of the vacuum's motor will heat the mercury and aerosolize it and distribute it throughout your home.

  First, open the room's windows and leave the room, closing the door behind you. Stay out of the room for at least 15 minutes before reentering to clean up the mess.

  Wear disposable gloves and a dust mask before using stiff paper, cardboard or plastic to very gently clean up the debris.

  If the breakage occurs on your carpet the safest thing to do is to remove that portion of your carpet by cutting it out with a utility knife, and very carefully placing it in a zip-lock type of plastic bag before disposing of it into your garbage can outside of your home.

  While this may sound a bit excessive, it is safest thing that you can do. Unless you have spare remnants remaining from when you first had your carpet installed that you can use to repair the hole in your carpet, you will have to replace your carpet.

  The lawful proceedure is to call in a hazmat team, but doing this will cost you many thousands of dollars, seriously, and you will still have to pay the cost to replace your carpet afterward. You may even have to evacuate your home while the removal and clean up takes place. 

  God forbid that they find asbestos while in your home. If they do, you might as well abandon your home altogether, seeing that they've now declared all your furnishings contaminated. 

  Here's a story that was published back in April that documents one woman's nightmare she experienced when she dropped a CFL in her daughter's bedroom: http://ellsworthmaine.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7446&Itemid=31

  If you buy the type with the plastic 'bulb', all of the broken glass tube's contents will be safely contained within the protective bulb, supposedly.

  This type of compact fluorescent should be the only kind permitted to be sold. All others that are not protected by an outer 'bulb' should be recalled.

  One thing we can do locally is to see to it that an ordinance is passed outlawing the use of the exposed unprotected type of compact fluorescent bulb within Albany City limits and maybe statewide.

  Here's the EPA's page on what to do if you find yourself confronted with a broken Fluorescent bulb:

  http://www.epa.gov/mercury/spills/index.htm#flourescent

  The DEC's site suggest's that you call Willard Bruce and so do I.

  Here's the phone number: 869-3651. 
  Ask for the "Recycling Specialist". It says we have one.

  Here's another recycling suggestion: 

  We need a Monthly Electronics Recyling Day to be established.
  There are many valuable and reusable components in most of today's electronics.

  By the way, we should all ask Bill Bruce to send us postcards from Slovakia when he's over there this summer attending a conference on your dime. He's really looking forward seeing some of their beautiful countryside, I mean technology, I mean garbage dumps. 

  Jim Travers

  -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Daniel W. Van Riper" <dwvr at mac.com> wrote:

Excellent point, Sheree. Good plan, Jim.  Perhaps concerned citizens could present a list of recycling demands to the City.  Here's the beginning of the list:  

  1)  Depository for all fluorescents.  Compact fluorescent bulbs have become more common, and there is even talk of banning incandescent bulbs.  This is fast becoming a disposal crisis.

  2)  Household food waste pickup and processing.  Sally remembers when the City did that.  There's no reason why the City can't purchase a cooker to sanitize the waste and sell it to farmers as feed.  Perhaps it could be processed into ethanol.

  3)  Tire pick up.  In my neighborhood this is a big problem.  Admittedly, tire disposal is one of the biggest waste disposal problems we have at this time.  But after the tires get dumped in public, the City eventually comes and picks them up from lots and back streets anyway.  Why not make it easier for everyone by picking them up, putting them someplace in an orderly manner and finding a way to sell them.

  4)  Domestic battery depository.  There's a lot of recoverable rare metals in these toxic babies.  Honest Weight Coop has a battery drop box, but I know of no other in town.

  Can anyone add to this list?

  SPB and others have been telling the City to collect methane from the Dump and generate power for at least 20 years.  The answer from Bill Bruce and other officials has always been, "We tried that that and it didn't work."  Or, "We looked into it and it couldn't be done."  Well, Colonie is doing it and making money.  Now Albany is "seriously considering it."  Wonderful. 

  So there is no reason to accept their "no, we can't do that."  If there is a political will, they will do it.  And as we know too well, with these bozos the only way to jumpstart their political will is to get in their faces and make their lives miserable until they start doing what they're paid to do.

  -Dan VR

    On Jul 14, 2007, at 1:41 PM, James Travers wrote:

    Sheree, 

  I know of no place to recycle these lamps which do contain a small quantity of mercury. 

  The State University supposedly has dumpster for recycling fluorescents, but it is for their own waste and not open to the public for their use.

  Perhaps someone else knows. 

  Maybe an email to DGS Commissioner Willard Bruce would get you an answer about what the City does with the many of theirs when it's time for their disposal. 

  His response to you may be quite revealing.

  Jim Travers

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Sheree <sheree at nycap.rr.com> wrote:
  Where locally is the best place to recycle an older round flourescent light, 
not a CFL? Have we no alternative but to "dump" them?

Is there a local recycling source of info on this and many items that any 
could recommend? Diverting from landfills - people want to, but how is 
hard.

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