minirant  

Posted by The Girl in

I'm really angry that I can't find out how to dispose of the 4' poisonous light bulbs that I have in my house.
I'm extra angry that the government has outlawed the other major kind of light bulb. Does anyone know if there's any subsidizing of fluorescent/CFLs going on?
I encourage everyone to avoid CFLs which are stupid and instead buy LED light bulbs, which are more expensive, but probably completely worth it, since you don't have to worry about breaking them, they last basically forever without using any electricity and you don't have to do anything special to dispose of them. They're obviously superior in every single way yet we have CFLs pushed on us from all directions. Wake up "environmentalists." For real.

*for those of you who have read this post before, you'll notice it's now rated PG!

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 17, 2008 at 10:58 PM and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed .

5 comments

Anonymous  

Home Depot has a compact fluorescent recycling program: http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories/2008/06/23/daily23.html

Bring the bulb to any Home Depot and give it to a store associate at the returns desk.

August 19, 2008 8:55 AM
The Girl  

I saw that, and it's pretty cool, but unfortunately, I'm not trying to get rid of a CFL, but rather one of the 4 foot lamps.
Interestingly enough, while checking to make sure I'm not an idiot, and that CFLs are in fact only the ones that are compact, I found this:
http://www.lamptech.co.uk/Spec%20Sheets/Philips%20CFL%20Tornado.htm
Most interesting is this part "In fact the spiral CFL is a very poor lamp in terms of efficacy. There are two ways to make it. The first is to coil the pre-coated glass tube. This causes damage to the phosphor layer during the deformation of the glass. The second is to first coil the glass, and then coat it. Owing to action of gravity, coating thickness cannot be uniformly controlled. It is too thick on the lower half of each coil, and too thin above. The result is a lamp of lower efficacy than when straight tubes are used, but owing to its compact size the lamp remains popular."
Another reason to go LED instead, yet all the hype still surrounds CFLs for no good reason.

August 19, 2008 10:43 AM
The Girl  

I noticed one more thing from that webpage that should be of interest to people:
"The low labour rates in China allowed this company to economically undertake the manufacture by employing a small army of glassblowers to create the spiral form. Since then the market has taken off and many of the major firms now out-source a spiral CFL lamp from China."

Awesome! Go CFL!

August 19, 2008 10:46 AM
Lisa Hayes  

what does this have to do with liberty or freedome :-))!!!!!!

August 20, 2008 9:40 PM
DM  

Hola.

A quick search revealed the website http://www.lamprecycle.org/. Quite a few companies listed, but a cursory glance did not reveal any with ATL, Georgia plants, just customer service centers. Many of the companies, however, do seem to allow you to send them CFL's and 4' to 8' FL's for recycling. Not very economical for just one, but if you have several it could be.

As to subsidizing CFL's, I consider banning their major competitor (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59298)
subsidizing, despite the gov't assistance not being monetary.

CFL hype exists because they are (currently, but not for long) cheaper than LED lights and more efficient than incandescents. Just wait for OLED's to hit the market in 2010 or 2011. They'll be big time, super cheap, and extremely economical.

Unrelated side note: I can't wait for environmentalists to tell me what car I can drive in the name of protecting the environment.

August 21, 2008 6:11 PM

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