Disposing of a burned out incandescent light bulb is simple. Throw it in the trash. Once compacted, it has all the environmental impact of a bottle cap and a tiny handful of sand. While more efficient, compact florescent bulbs are not the same. They require many more precautions prior to disposal, as they contain mercury, a miniature high voltage transformer and a thick plastic base.
Before rushing out to replace all your incandescent bulbs, go to to better understand the correct procedures for disposal, as well as the less-publicized environmental impact of using these bulbs.

To put the exposure in perspective, a study of workers who had been exposed on a regular basis to 33,000 nanograms/m3 of mercury (roughly a third of the 100,000 ng/m3 peak caused by a broken bulb), and compared in a neurological test to a control group of 70 unexposed people, found they scored worse on “mental arithmetic, 2-digit search, switching attention, visual choice reaction time and finger tapping”.

As a result of the Maine scientific study on CFL breakages, major changes have been made in recommendations around the use of CFL light bulbs.
The real cost is not one light bulb breakage, but how badly affected homes will be after 20 years of amateur attempts to clean up one of the deadliest neurotoxins on the planet. A generation of children crawling on mercury-infested carpets would give new meaning to the phrase, “dumbed-down”.
On the strength of these scenarios alone, there’s a good case for actually banning the use of CFLs in homes, outright and immediately. Continue reading at NowPublic.com: http://www.nowpublic.com/health/mercury-cfl-bulbs#ixzz1DJbRI9Os

Cleaning Up a Broken CFL

What to Do if a Compact Fluorescent Light (CFL) Bulb or Fluorescent Tube Light Bulb Breaks in Your Home

When a fluorescent bulb breaks in your home, some of this mercury is released as mercury vapor. The broken bulb can continue to release mercury vapor until it is cleaned up and removed from the residence.
This page presents only the most important steps to reduce exposure to mercury vapor from a broken bulb.

1. Before cleanup
   • Have people and pets leave the room.
   • Air out the room for 5-10 minutes by opening a window or door to the outdoor environment.
   • Shut off the central forced air heating/air-conditioning system, if you have one.
   • Collect materials needed to clean up broken bulb.

2. During cleanup
   • Be thorough in collecting broken glass and visible powder.
   • Place cleanup materials in a sealable container.

3. After cleanup
   • Promptly place all bulb debris and cleanup materials outdoors in a trash container or protected area until materials can be disposed of properly. Avoid leaving any bulb fragments or cleanup materials indoors.
   • If practical, continue to air out the room where the bulb was broken and leave the heating/air conditioning system shut off for several hours.

The international symbol for biological hazard.

CFL bulbs contain CFLs Different CFL designs may be more or less prone to breakage and can contain different amounts of mercury.

Other problems that CFLs have include:

They are less efficient than LEDs – CFLs, despite their efficiency, are still only about half as efficient than LEDs. A 10W LED bulb gives about the same amount of light as a 20W CFL bulb.
They have a shorter lifespan – The life of a CFL is significantly shorter if it is only turned on for a few minutes at a time: In the case of a 5-minute on/off cycle the lifespan of a CFL can be up to 85% shorter, reducing its lifespan to the level of an incandescent lamp. The US Energy Star program says to leave them on at least 15 minutes at a time to mitigate this problem. (LEDs can be cycled on and off with no problem and work better in cold temperatures.)

Warm Up Time – CFLs takes a perceptible time to achieve full brightness, and can take much longer in very cold temperatures.
Not Fully Dimmable – Dimmable CFL have emerged in the past year, but there have been reports of buzzing and color shifting while dimming as well as a limited range of dimmability. Most LED bulbs are not dimmable at the moment, but the ones that are, are fully dimmable and do not buzz. Keep a lookout for dimmable LED bulbs that we’ve found.