WHEN busted fluorescent lamps are improperly disposed of, mercury — a potent neurotoxin — is released into the environment, endangering the health of both workers in garbages sites as well as the general public.
Environmental health groups aired this warning after conducting a “photo documentation” to find out how spent lamps are disposed of by “small quantity waste generators,” or entities that accumulate less than 100 busted lamps a year.
With the help of “Basura Patrollers” from the Diocese of Caloocan Ecology Ministry, EcoWaste Coalition, Global Alliance for IncineratorAlternatives and Mother Earth Foundation, photos from garbage bins and heaps were taken at random in January, 2012
The photos were taken in pavements and sidewalks in the cities of Caloocan, Las Piñas, Makati, Mandaluyong, Manila, Navotas, Parañaque, Pasay, San Juan and Quezon.
Some of the photos can be viewed at http://ecowastecoalition.blogspot.com/
The investigation confirmed the unsafe practice of simply leaving or throwing mercury-containing lamp waste in the streets as if these were merely candy wrappers.
Busted lamps were dumped along with typical trash, or were left by the roadside, which were then picked up by garbage collectors, sometimes crushed in compactor trucks and then hauled to municipal waste landfills for final disposal.
This is very disturbing since these spent bulbs are no ordinary discards. Reckless disposal can lead to lamp breakage and the discharge of its mercury content in vapor form.
Citing information from a government-published “Primer on Mercury-Containing Lamp Waste Management,” the groups said that tubular fluorescent lamps can contain 3 to 50 mg. of mercury, while compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) can contain 1 to 25 mg. of mercury.
The health impacts of mercury release and contamination, according to the primer, can include brain damage, memory loss, learning disabilities, behavioral problems, loss of sensation and vision, tremors, heart disease, kidney failure, liver injury and damage to the reproductive system.
Waste workers, particularly the paleros (garbage collectors) and the informal recyclers, are at risk of direct exposure to mercury vapors from broken lamps.
Mercury vapor data at Pier 18 showed an average reading of over 117 micrograms per cubic meter (mcg/m3) with the highest reading at more than 502 mcg/m3.
The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration has set a “permissible exposure limit” for mercury vapor at 0.1 milligram per cubic meter (or 100 mcg/m3), warning that “a worker’s exposure to mercury vapor shall at no time exceed this ceiling level.”
To reduce and eliminate occupational and community mercury exposures, national and local authorities should enforce a system for the environmentally-sound management of busted lamps, including a practical system for safe collection, storage and recycling, the groups said.
The environmental groups said authorities should fast track the adoption of a product-take-back-system that will make manufacturers responsible for the management of their end-of-life fluorescent lamps.
The groups emphasized the need to educate the waste workers and the public about the hazards of mercury in the waste stream and the need for precaution to prevent toxic exposure through ingestion, inhalation and eye/skin contact.
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