Young people in many emerging countries continue to risk their health – and lives – dismantling electrical and electronic devices that contain mercury.

Indiais a prime example, according to Jochen Flasbarth, president of Germany’s Federal Environment Agency, who recently travelled to India and observed local methods of recycling electronic components.

“There you see mostly children in homes and apartments dismantling computers and other electronic devices, as well as electrical lamps, by hand – without any knowledge of the health hazards,” he said. “It’s a shocking sight.”

EU mercury export ban

To protect people against such hazards, the EU imposed an export ban on mercury in March 2011. Within the EU, the toxic substance now has to be disposed of in an environmentally-friendly way.

Germany’s largest recycling company, DELA in Essen, specializes in separating mercury from products and disposing of it safely.

Trucks regularly arrive at the recycler full of used florescent tubes. Fork-lift operators remove pallets full of the tubes and dump them into large hoppers. A powerful ventilation system keeps the air free of poisonous mercury fumes.

The tubes are then shredded and transported to a silo, where two tons of newly shredded glass are added every hour, according to DELA‘s managing director, Christian Bonmann.

From there, the crushed lamp glass is pushed through pipes to a broken-glass washer.

“We free the shredded lamps of the fluorescent powder by rinsing the pieces with clean water until they are pollution-free,” Bonmann said. “The metal and glass are separated up front by a sieve. We then ship the metal and glass back to the manufacturers.”

In addition to the glass and metal, a white sludge remains. It is rich in illuminates, which contain precious metals, such as yttrium and europium.

But the sludge also contains mercury.

So, in a next step – to separate the mercury from the illuminates – the sludge is poured into a vacuum dryer, which functions much like a clothes dryer.

Once the sludge is dry, it’s put into a vacuum and heated to 370 degrees Celsius to vaporize the mercury. Like a schnapps distillery, the mercury vapour enters a condenser and drips out, producing pure mercury.

Rotary kiln

The process also produces pollution-free illuminates, which light-bulb manufacturers can in turn use.

DELA also operates a revolving cylindrical furnace, which is three meters high and about twice as long. It can process all sorts of mercury-contaminated materials, particularly filters from coal-fired power plants and waster incinerators.

READ MORE VIA  Mercury recycling could save lives | Sci-Tech | DW.DE | 16.05.2012.

BY TAWNY MAYA MCCRAY via Illinois Times

As if by instinct, most consumers knew what wattage bulb to buy. A 40-watt bulb might go in a closet, a 75-watt could be used in a reading lamp, and a bright 100-watt might go above a workbench. But most often, consumers bought a 60-watt bulb — pretty bright but not blinding, and not so hot that it ruined the fixture.

Much of that buying decision, though, was based on experience and marketing, including information on the package. It was all about how much power a bulb used.

“We have been conditioned to buy on watts,” said Peter Soares, director of consumer marketing for Philips Lighting.Not for long. Because of new technologies, the industry wants consumers to choose light bulbs by lumens, which measure brightness, not by watts. This will be done with fancy new packaging and a sober, federally mandated label.

Read More via New federal label for household light bulbs packages could help consumers warm up to CFL, LED bulbs | cleveland.com.

BulbAmerica, a leading wholesale retailer of quality lighting fixtures and light bulbs in the United States is an environmentally conscious company that believes in offering all their customers reliable and trustworthy information regarding various lighting products. A recent study conducted by Peter Braun in Berlin’s Alab Laboratory revealed that the compact and environmentally-friendly CFLs (compact fluorescent lamps) that are going to replace the age old incandescent light bulbs contain carcinogenic substances.

Some of these toxic and cancer causing substances include phenol, naphthalene, and styrene. Scientists in Germany are strongly advising people to use these bulbs sparingly and only in areas that have good ventilation as these bulbs are now known to generate electrical smog that is extremely harmful. A professor of biology at Haifa University in Israel, Abraham Haim found that the likelihood of women getting breast cancer increased due to the light emitted by Compact Fluorescent Bulbs. This light disrupts the production of the hormone melatonin in the body.

Says a lighting expert at BulbAmerica, “These CFL’s are marketed as safe products but can potentially damage the liver, brain, kidneys, and the CNS only if the light bulbs are broken, cracked, or not disposed off properly.” CFLs are also known to produce radiation that is also associated with a number of health defects including, but not limited to dizziness, headaches, weakness, sleep abnormalities, fatigue, and migraine headaches. With the government’s decision to go ahead with banning the sale of 100 watt traditional incandescent light bulbs with the 75-watt version of toxic CFLs by January 1, 2012, people might be forced to use these compact fluorescents.

via BulbAmerica Presents the Latest News on the Safety of Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs.

The Oregon Senate has passed a bill limiting the amount of mercury allowed in compact fluorescent light bulbs that can be sold or distributed in the state. The Senate passed the bill on Feb. 15 by a vote of 21-8, with one member not voting.

Agreement on Common Bulbs

“It came about through negotiations with the industry for some of the more common consumer bulbs,” said Scott Klag, a senior planner for Metro, an elected regional government body for the Portland area.

The bill, SB 1512, creates very specific standards for compact fluorescent light bulbs, otherwise known as CFLs. Mercury levels cannot exceed 4 milligrams for “screw-based compact fluorescent lamps less than 25 watts,” and 5 milligrams for “compact fluorescent lamps equal to or more than 25 watts and less than 40 watts.”

Consumers will be most affected by “the compact fluorescent with the swirly top,” for which “the limit would be 4 milligrams per lamp,” Abby Boudouris, a solid waste policy analyst with the state’s Department of Environmental Quality, told Environment & Climate News.

Click Below for more

via Oregon Lawmakers Target Mercury in Light Bulbs | Heartlander Magazine.

Numerous concerns have been voiced with regard to energy-saving compact fluorescent lamps (CFL), mainly due to their potential risks to health, their actual performance and issues involved in their disposal due to their mercury content. Research conducted by the Canadian government indicated that CFLs pose no health risks from ultraviolet radiation or electromagnetic emission, but noted that more time is needed to communicate these facts to consumers effectively.

Reasons given for delaying the implementation in Canada by two years are that the amendment to the regulations will provide more time to communicate research findings to the public as well as more time to install CFL disposal programs. The main messages to the Canadian public are that no one technology will have to be used, alternatives will become available and the use of CFLs poses no health risks.

However, the delay will put Canada one or two years behind the US schedule for incandescent bulb phase-out as well as pushing any projected energy and cost savings further into the future.

via Canada Delays Phase Out of Incandescent Light Bulbs for 2 Years | AltEnergyMag Press Release.

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.

Written by : Manny C. Calonzo
via Busted lamps pose toxic risk | Opinion.

Even though the rule has been a part of a federal regulation of the Environment Protection Agency since 1990, Raymond Graczyk said that only about 30 percent of private businesses properly handle the removal of universal waste such as mercury-containing light bulbs, batteries and ballasts – even though the numerous toxic effects of mercury poisoning has been well documented for years and years. Those effects include damage to the brain, kidney and lungs.

“What happens with mercury is that it accumulates in the environment, so when you’re getting hundreds and hundreds and millions of lamps being thrown out a year that  mercury is released to the environment and then it finds its way back into the food chain, especially in fish,” said Graczyk, who is the co-founder and president of NLR, a company based north of Hartford, Conn., that specializes in lamp and universal recycling services for mainly commercial businesses. “[Awareness] is increasing some but it’s not as rapidly as it should be. It’s hard to say and necessarily come up with a reason why… Whether people aren’t properly informed. Whether they don’t care. I don’t know. Maybe they don’t realize how really available and easy it is to recycle.”

raczyk was working in the electric wholesale business before helping start NLR as a response to the EPA’s new regulations and the relative lack of a facility needed to process mercury-containing light bulbs in the Northeast. “There wasn’t any viable solution at that point in time,” he said.

NLR began with lamps — according to the company’s website it has recycled more than 300 million linear feet of lamp waste — and then quickly expanded to electronics and battery recycling and similar services. The company has more than a thousand customers in New York City alone, Graczyk said. He added that the company has clients all over the Northeast, stretching from Maine to Maryland.

“What we do at our company is keep a lot of mercury out of the environment,” said Graczyk, who also serves as the president of the Association of Lighting and Mercury Recyclers, which has an “Education and Resources” page on its website.

Here’s how it works: A large blue and yellow machine (see above) crushes the lamps and removes calcium phosphate powder that contains the mercury from the glass. The metal and glass is then separated. The phosphate powder then is sent off for a process called retorting where the mercury is reclaimed through the powder. In the case of lamp recycling and all other similar processes, the raw materials, such as aluminum from a lamp or nickel from a battery, is smelted to later be made into a variety of products.

At the moment, the main involvement NLR at the residential level is only through partnerships that have been arranged with municipal transfer stations throughout the area. That could change, though, as more Americans begin using compact florescent lights in their homes with the federal ban of traditional 100-watt bulbs. Furthermore, manufacturers will stop producing 75-watt bulbs on Jan. 1, 2012, but will be allowed to make 60- and 40-watt bulbs until 2014.

“I’m sure as the use of compact fluorescents becomes more prevalent than we definitely will be more involved on the residential side,” Gracyzk said. “When you throw out florescent bulbs, they don’t even make it to the landfill. They’ll start releasing into the environment from the dumpster because they get broken right away.”

Does your company use services such as the ones provided by NLR? What are your thoughts on the spread of mercury into the environment in regards to light bulbs? We’d love to hear from you on the topic.

via Full Circle, Part 4: NLR – The Green Apple.