Home Depot no longer recycling CFL bulbs

[VNTS]

if your trash goes to the land fill disposing spent fluorescent lamps is no big deal, the HG compounds will be bound up with any iron burried with the crushed bulbs and will not leach into the water. If incinerated then yes the Hg will be released into the atmosphere. In reality your few bulbs wont make a difference.

The recycling is geared to large users who have thousands of fixtures.

2000 metrics tons of Hg is released worldwide from burning fossil fuels, 2.9 tons from lamps which are not recycled and incinerated.

 

[Bud]

Local trash pickup takes mine.

 

[daves87rs]

Most people just toss trash where ever they want around here...

 

[Bandito440]

My Lowe's takes CFLs and has a long box for fluorescent tubes.

My grocery store has three household battery bins; rechargable, button, and alkaline disposable.

I bet Home Depot just moved the box. Did you ask about it?

 

[bvance554]

How much energy is spent in removing the miniscule amount of mercury in a CFL? How much time and energy do you spend trying to find a place to properly dispose of your lightbulb? Is there on fancy central laboratory that receives the bulbs, or are there local facilities that handle this? Or do we put it all on a China bound container ship so some kids can recover this stuff with no protective equipment for $1 a day so they can feed their family? Maybe i'm being dramatic but really how is this stuff handled? Unless i have a very large quantity of bulbs to dispose of they're going in the trash.

 

[hatt]

Leave it to the government to force toxic bulbs onto the market, for the environment. I doubt HD gets any CFL bulbs placed in the recycle bins. Just wasting floor space.

 

[Kestas]

Hasn't it been shown that the amount of mercury in a CFL is less than the mercury produced by burning the extra coal to power incandescent bulbs?

 

[JHZR2]

Originally Posted By: Kestas
Hasn't it been shown that the amount of mercury in a CFL is less than the mercury produced by burning the extra coal to power incandescent bulbs?


Apparently this has been determined multiple times, but dont underestimate hatred of stuff for the sake of hatred, versus objective evidence...

 

[fdcg27]

I've long wondered whether some of these recycling drop-off containers one sees in so many stores for so many spent products are for real or whether the store manager just has one of the flunkies tip the thing in the compactor out back every so often.
The recycling box is simply a feel-good thing for consumers and a corporate image booster for store chains.
Certain goods, like all grades of paper and cardboard, drain oil and lead acid batteries can be recycled on a cash-positive basis. Others can generate a small positive or at least be cash neutral, like glass and plastic containers.
Complex little assemblies, like CFL and LED lamps as well as spent dry cell batteries would seem to offer no possibility of being anything other than cash-negative in any recycling process, so you have to wonder how many of these ever actually get recycled and how many are simply disposed of directly from the recycling box?
I kind of doubt that there can be many companies writing checks to properly recycle some of these items.

 

[hatt]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Originally Posted By: Kestas
Hasn't it been shown that the amount of mercury in a CFL is less than the mercury produced by burning the extra coal to power incandescent bulbs?


Apparently this has been determined multiple times, but dont underestimate hatred of stuff for the sake of hatred, versus objective evidence...
When did we determine that power plants dump mercury onto your living room floor?

 

[JHZR2]

Originally Posted By: hatt
Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Originally Posted By: Kestas
Hasn't it been shown that the amount of mercury in a CFL is less than the mercury produced by burning the extra coal to power incandescent bulbs?


Apparently this has been determined multiple times, but dont underestimate hatred of stuff for the sake of hatred, versus objective evidence...
When did we determine that power plants dump mercury onto your living room floor?


When did we determine what fraction of the powder in the cfl ends up in either of those places?

Clue, mist of the miniscule amount doesnt.

Ive run cfls for nearly 10 years, and havent broken one. As i transition to LEDs, its moot. So whats your point? Had i burned jncandescents the whole time, the mercury woukd have spewed into the environment.

 

[hatt]

Quote:
Had i burned jncandescents the whole time, the mercury woukd have spewed into the environment.
You mean back where it came from.

 

[fdcg27]

Originally Posted By: hatt
Quote:
Had i burned jncandescents the whole time, the mercury woukd have spewed into the environment.
You mean back where it came from.


Well, no.
The mercury, along with the carbon, was sequestered in seams deep in the earth.
Burning that coal liberates these elements directly into the air we breathe and that envelopes our world.
Bit of a difference.

 

[JHZR2]

Originally Posted By: fdcg27
Originally Posted By: hatt
Quote:
Had i burned jncandescents the whole time, the mercury woukd have spewed into the environment.
You mean back where it came from.


Well, no.
The mercury, along with the carbon, was sequestered in seams deep in the earth.
Burning that coal liberates these elements directly into the air we breathe and that envelopes our world.
Bit of a difference.


Thank you.

 

[hatt]

Originally Posted By: fdcg27
Originally Posted By: hatt
Quote:
Had i burned jncandescents the whole time, the mercury woukd have spewed into the environment.
You mean back where it came from.


Well, no.
The mercury, along with the carbon, was sequestered in seams deep in the earth.
Burning that coal liberates these elements directly into the air we breathe and that envelopes our world.
Bit of a difference.

Not seeing the difference. It's a cycle. Before it was sequestered. It wasn't. The cycle has been going on since the beginning of time but now all the sudden the continuance of the endless cycle spells doom. Pure junk science.

I bet you guys have no problem putting the industrial waste fluoride in drinking water and releasing it into human and the environment. It was sequestered too. Thousands of tons a year. But 50 tons of mercury is troubling.

https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp11-c5.pdf
Quote:

In 2001, 65,200 tons of byproduct fluorosilicic acid (equivalent to 104,000 tons of fluorspar) were
produced by 10 plants owned by 6 companies. Fluorosilicic acid was used primarily in water
fluoridation, either directly or after processing into sodium silicofluoride

 

[JHZR2]

Why are you putting words into others' mouths just because you have a poor and ineffective point?

What you linked to is equally unacceptable. Why woukd you imply anything else?

 

[hatt]

I see you were not able to address the cycle comments. I'm am glad you're on the anti fluoride train.

 

[Nate1979]

Originally Posted By: hatt
Originally Posted By: fdcg27
Originally Posted By: hatt
Quote:
Had i burned jncandescents the whole time, the mercury woukd have spewed into the environment.
You mean back where it came from.


Well, no.
The mercury, along with the carbon, was sequestered in seams deep in the earth.
Burning that coal liberates these elements directly into the air we breathe and that envelopes our world.
Bit of a difference.

Not seeing the difference. It's a cycle. Before it was sequestered. It wasn't. The cycle has been going on since the beginning of time but now all the sudden the continuance of the endless cycle spells doom. Pure junk science.

I bet you guys have no problem putting the industrial waste fluoride in drinking water and releasing it into human and the environment. It was sequestered too. Thousands of tons a year. But 50 tons of mercury is troubling.

https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp11-c5.pdf
Quote:

In 2001, 65,200 tons of byproduct fluorosilicic acid (equivalent to 104,000 tons of fluorspar) were
produced by 10 plants owned by 6 companies. Fluorosilicic acid was used primarily in water
fluoridation, either directly or after processing into sodium silicofluoride





Take your tin foil "hatt" off.....

 

[hatt]

Originally Posted By: Nate1979

Take your tin foil "hatt" off.....
Another person that can post. But can't post anything addressing the subject matter.

 

[fdcg27]

Please tell us in what geologic era free mercury vapor was floating around in the air.
Your cycle theory tells us that this must have been the case at some point.