If Happy Fun Ball begins to smoke, leave the room immediately...

This website is supposed to be about practical steps we can take to green up our household (and not so much about my ill-informed sociopolitical blahblahblah) so today let's take a look at CFL's, or Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs. You know what I'm talking about, those white corkscrew thingies that are in stores everywhere now. They're going to save the world, or at least moderately improve the world, while massively assuaging upper-middle-class eco-guilt. It's win-win! And it's very easy to do!

(This is a timely subject for our household because owing to some infernal synchronicity I can't even guess at, all of our lightbulbs blew more or less simultaneously and the house is now shrouded in darkness. Or possibly they blew one at a time, in the usual lightbulb blowing fashion, and I've been too lazy to notice and replace them until critical lightbulb failure mass was achieved. Whatever. It's dark in our house.)

Here's the basics, from energystar.gov:

If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified bulb [ie, a CFL], we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, more than $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars.

So that's good.

Other pros: they lower your heating bill. You save money!

Con: you save money in the long run. In the short run you pay so unbelievably much for a single 60-watt replacement bulb that you say to yourself, Gadzooks (or some stronger oath), can that possibly be right?

Decidedly con con: CFL's contain mercury, which is bad. Mercury is the stuff in your salmon that's slowly killing you. And being an element and all, Mercury does not biodegrade into non-toxic form once released into the environment. (That's why it got into your salmon to begin with.) These lightbulbs have to be handled carefully and disposed of properly.

Let's say that again, because the manufacturer, packager, marketer, and distributor will quite possibly forget to mention it. These lightbulbs have to be handled carefully and disposed of properly!

In Indiana, it is not legal to dispose of fluorescent lights as general waste.* Fortunately for us, Indianapolis has a year round toxic recycling program. Go Indiana!

Indianapolis Tox Drop Centers

Also, not safe for mom and baby! If a CFL hits the floor, open the window, clear the room, and follow these simple instructions for safe cleanup:

1. Open a window and leave the room (restrict access) for at least 15 minutes.

2. Remove all materials you can without using a vacuum cleaner.
-Wear disposable rubber gloves, if available (do not use your bare hands).
-Carefully scoop up the fragments and powder with stiff paper or cardboard.
-Wipe the area clean with a damp paper towel or disposable wet wipe.
Sticky tape (such as duct tape) can be used to pick up small pieces and powder.

3. Place all cleanup materials in a plastic bag and seal it.
-If your state permits you to put used or broken CFLs in the garbage, seal the CFL in two plastic bags and put into the outside trash (if no other disposal or recycling options are available).
-Wash your hands after disposing of the bag.

4. The first time you vacuum the area where the bulb was broken, remove the vacuum bag once done cleaning the area (or empty and wipe the canister) and put the bag and/or vacuum debris, as well as the cleaning materials, in two sealed plastic bags in the outdoor trash or protected outdoor location for normal disposal.

So that's a pain in the ass. But then, so is the melting of the polar ice caps (unless you're a big speculator in Ohio beachfront property.) It's important not to get hysterical about this. It would take 100 broken CFL's to equal the amount of mercury in just one of those old glass thermometers everybody had (and that clumsy little kids like me used to break on a regular basis.) But still, poison is poison, so treat them with respect.

*True Fact: At the 2007 Indianapolis Earth Day festival kickoff ceremony, it was announced that WalMart was giving out free CFLs at a booth. An older gentleman in the crowd started heckling the speaker about what a pain they were to recycle. Okay, fair point. People need all the facts. But dude! You're heckling an Earth Day Festival!