You will be able to save energy and a lot of money with CFLs. Compact fluorescent bulbs come in different color temperatures, which produce different color-tone light. Lower color temperature bulbs give off a reddish-orange light while higher color temperature bulbs give off a more bluish-white light.As an example, if you are replacing a standard 60-watt incandescent light bulb from a table lamp in your living room, you will want to replace it with a 13-watt to 18-watt CFL (60-watt incandescent equivalent) with a color temperature of around 2,700 degrees. If you use this table lamp for reading, you might want to buy a 23-watt to 26-watt CFL (equivalent to a 100-watt incandescent) with a color temperature of 4,000. - An 18-watt compact fluorescent lamp operating 6 hours a day costs 22 cents a month in electricity.
- A 100-watt incandescent bulb operating for the same time costs $1.30 a month.
The other good news is that CFL lasts much longer than incandescent bulbs. I just last week replaced a CFL that I installed four years ago. Previously I use to replace incandescent lamps every few months!.
Another part that comes with CFLs is that you just can't toss them once used. Just like old computers or car batteries, these need to be recycled. This is very important and each and every municipality has means of recycling your spent CFLs.
So change to CFLa and have a brighter and safer future, for us and generations to come.
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5 comments:
As someone who sells light bulbs for a living, I am less enthusiastic than most about compact fluorescent bulbs due to their mercury content.
Another consideration is that as these bulbs burn out, they will most likely be thrown away as though they are normal rubbish (despite the disposal instructions) and landfills will have incredibly high levels of mercury in their soil as a result.
It is my belief that the technology should progress to a point at which the mercury levels are low or nonexistent before people changeover their entire homes.
Most CFLs today on the market contain less than 5mgs of mercury and there are CFL options out there that contain as little as 1.5mgs of mercury- which can hardly be called a “significant amounts of mercury” considering that many item in your home contain 100s of times more of mercury including your computer. Mercury levels in CFLs can never be “nonexistent” since mercury is a necessary component of a CFL and there is no other known element that is capable of replacing it. But CFLs actually prevent more mercury from entering the environment. According to the Union of Concerned Scientist, “a coal-fired power plant will emit about four times more mercury to keep an incandescent bulb glowing, compared with a CFL of the same light output”.
Hello to both, I think both of you are correct to a certain extent. We need to have proper disposal methods for mercury, does not matter what ever the amount is. Yes to the amount of Mercury in CFL's as they have shrunk and I would rather light 1000 CFLs than agreeing to a coal powered plant as they stand today!.
But disposal is very important as even a little amounts of mercury can add up!. I am holding my first burned out CFL (After almost a 4 years of operation) to take it to a recycling center. The difficulty is disposal might lead a less educated member to throw that into a thrash can. So let us educate ourselves and make this a better world!
Well great news for you ravenII! The Home Depot announced its CFL recycling program yesterday (6/25). Since 80% of homes are with 10 miles of a local The Home Depot store recycling CFLs should no long be an issue.
Thanks Krissy,
I am going to go over tomorrow and then of course I am going to write about it! Thank you again for keeping us updated. Ravenii is somewhere in the southern Hemisphere! Testing his all solar and vegi powered yacht (He calls it a yacht but to me a boat!) I have to go over to his place and perhaps I will take care of his CFLs (He burned another since article and it looks like life of these are about four years!)
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