Benefits Of CFLs, Compact Fluorescent Lamps.

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.

So if you replace ten 100 watt bulbs with CFLs, you stand to save $10.80 off your electrical bill Every Month, that is almost $130 a year. If we all do that it is about 12 Billion dollars that we save in energy costs, just here in USA. So even if you do not want to change 10 lamps, just try it out with 3 or 4. Your hardware store carries these lamps and follow the above guide in wattage to chose right lamp. (Other parts of the world, they call these lamps, bulbs!)
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.

Tags: CFL, energy conservation, Compact Fluorescent Lamp, incandescent lamp

IKea will recycle your CFL Bulbs with "Free Take Back" Program

The first place I bought my first pack of CFL bulbs (Compact Florescent Light Bulbs) is also now recycling those bulbs. CFLs have Mercury in them and need to be disposed in special manner by professionals.
So Collect your CFLs once they reach their end of life (Mind you they last for a very long time.) bring your used mercury containing lightbulbs to the IKEA store for free disposal. IKEA's offer a ‘Free Take Back’ program offering recycle bins in all IKEA stores is a very responsible task by IKEA. If you are far away from IKEA or want to find out how to accomplish this in other manner, lamp disposal information for your state is available at www.lamprecycle.org .
In addition to CFL bulbs, IKEA is being environmentally responsible than many others. To learn about their afforts, please follow this link.