Enlightened: Low-energy counterparts replace traditional bulbs

By Wally Kennedy
THE JOPLIN GLOBE (JOPLIN, Mo.)

JOPLIN, Mo. April 23, 2008 10:28 am

— Joplin a green town? Apparently so.
According to 18Seconds.org, a Yahoo! Web site that tracks sales of compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs), this Southwest Missouri community hugging the Ozark Mountains has sold more CFL bulbs on a per-capita basis than any other city in the nation.
CFL bulbs use about two-thirds less energy and last up to 10 times longer than their incandescent counterparts
Joplin’s No.-1 ranking translates into 274,135 bulbs sold within the past year or so. The Web site says the buyers of those bulbs will save a cumulative $5,643,343 in energy costs.
It’s the equivalent of keeping the greenhouse gas emissions of 2,265 cars from entering the atmosphere or saving 33,234,385 pounds of coal. In terms of Joplin’s carbon footprint, the purchase of those bulbs prevents the release of 142,243,169 pounds of carbon dioxide — a major greenhouse gas — into the atmosphere.

Cost of success
But the emerald city has a problem.
CFL bulbs contain minuscule amounts of mercury, a neurotoxin and long-lived contaminant that can cause brain and kidney damage at high exposure levels. When one of the bulbs goes dark, it should be recycled to keep the hazardous substance out of local landfills, but Joplin does not have a recycling program for CFLs because it costs too much.
“No, I can’t take them,” said Mary Anne Phillips, coordinator of Joplin’s recycling program. “It would cost us 72 cents a bulb to recycle them. We can’t afford that. We’re already operating a recycling center that does not make money.
“The companies who make these bulbs should subsidize the take-back program. Instead, they have put the burden on society instead of sharing in the burden. It’s called product stewardship. In this case, the responsibility falls solely on the user,” she said.
It’s a problem that Kent Comstock, a Wheaton poultry farmer, is dealing with on a daily basis. He prefers to use the bulbs in his chicken houses not because they reduce his energy costs but because they last so long.
“They save me time, though they are more expensive. I don’t have to change them as often. I’ve got to reach a 14-foot peak to change a bulb. It’s a matter of simplicity,” he said.
“I have purchased hundreds of them. When one of them goes out, I’m putting them in a bucket until I can figure out what to do with them,” he said.
Because he is a major user, Comstock is concerned that “someone 10 to 15 years down the road will come back on me and ask me how I disposed of all these bulbs. I don’t want to become a hazardous-waste site or be accused of throwing away hundreds of light bulbs that contain mercury in a landfill.”
Comstock does not use CFL bulbs in his home. He still prefers to use incandescent bulbs there.
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has come up with a recycling option for that state. The department is partnering with 43 counties, townships, environmental groups and businesses statewide to set up CFL bulb collection programs.

Green campaign
The reason why Joplin is ranked No. 1 in CFL bulb sales is because of Wal-Mart’s participation in the 18Seconds.org campaign. When a CFL bulb is sold at any of the three Wal-Mart Supercenters or the Sam’s Club in the Joplin/Webb City market, it is logged on the Web site. The site gets its name from the amount of time it takes to change a light. The theme of the campaign is “Change a Bulb, Change Everything.”
Wal-Mart launched a green campaign last year to sell 100 million CFL bulbs a year. The bulbs are being prominently displayed in its stores.
Yahoo! launched the 18Seconds.org campaign in conjunction with Lawrence Bender, Oscar-winning producer of the documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.”
Wal-Mart recently took steps to lower the amount of mercury in the CFL bulbs it sells by directing four suppliers — GE, Royal Philips, Osram Sylvania and Lights of America — to reduce the mercury content. The step effectively removed 360 pounds of mercury per 100 million CFL bulbs sold, a reduction of 33 percent, based on 13-watt bulbs, according to Wal-Mart’s Web site.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the replacement of incandescent bulbs with CFL bulbs will still result in less mercury in the environment. That’s because most of the nation’s electricity is generated by the burning of coal, which emits mercury when burned. Because a CFL bulb requires less energy than an incandescent bulb, mercury emissions would decline.
According to the EPA, coal-fired power plants emit four times more mercury to power an incandescent bulb than to power a CFL bulb.
Bender, on the Yahoo! corporate blog, states: “If every American swapped just one bulb, it would save more than $8 billion in energy costs, prevent the burning of 30 billion pounds of coal, and keep the equivalent of two million cars’ worth of greenhouse gas emissions from entering the atmosphere.”

Wally Kennedy writes for The Joplin (Mo.) Globe.


45 bulbs
Research shows that the average U.S. household has 45 light bulbs. About 20 percent of a home’s electric costs stem from lighting.
Source: Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection

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