For 125 years the incandescent light bulb has been used by people to create light in homes and businesses. In 2012, those bulbs will begin a phasing out process and will be banned by January 2014, by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.

With limited exceptions – mainly appliance bulbs, colored lights and three-way light bulbs – the fluorescent lamp will be the incandescent replacement. The lumens, which is the amount of light a lamp is capable of generating, can be the same for both an incandescent and fluorescent, but the amount of watts a lamp uses are much lower with fluorescents.

Incandescent bulbs will last upwards of 800 to 1,000 hours, while the common compact fluorescents will last on average 8,000 hours.

The fluorescent lamp, however, has traces of mercury and environmental groups question the potential negative effects of mercury on the environment when not disposed of properly.

A hazardous danger?

Fluorescent lamps are considered hazardous material by the EPA because they contain mercury. For companies, they are illegal to throw away by EPA standards, however, most fluorescent lamps contain just five milligrams of mercury.

Sean Whalen, environmental programs manager for the department of environmental health and safety, said large quantities of lamps may be dangerous however.

“In one bulb, even ten bulbs, there’s enough mercury in the bulb to make it hazardous waste, but the level of mercury that makes something hazardous waste is [extremely low]. You can take a teaspoon full of mercury and drink it and all of it will give you is diarrhea,” he said. “The health effect from one lamp is negligible, but take one or hundred of thousands or millions of them and you see why they need to be regulated.”

Whalen said the problem is how to deal with residents disposing of the lamps since they are not required to recycle them.

“Generally, households never had very many fluorescents. Now people are starting to switch [incandescents] out and it’s shifted the problem,” Whalen said. “We are trying to save energy and electricity by going to compact fluorescents but now instead of 10 fairly harmless incandescents going to the landfill from every house we’ve got 10 compact fluorescents and multiply that by a thousand households, that is why legislation is needed to require recycling of these household compact fluorescents too.”

Whalen said the EPA began regulations because of the numerous companies that had converted to fluorescents but were throwing them in the landfill after their usage.

“When they started regulating light bulbs and mercury at such a low level it was because millions of light bulbs were going into the landfills every year all around the country,” he said.

Sen. Joe Bolkom (D-Iowa City) introduced Senate File 2225 that would have required all locations that sell the fluorescents to provide a drop off so they could be recycled, and it would have banned the lamps from being put into the landfill after July 1. However, the bill never made it out of committee.

At Iowa State

Fluorescent lamps have been used at Iowa State for decades, but now the push is to get rid of incandescent bulbs on campus and use compact fluorescents.

Compact fluorescents are the swirled lamps that replace the common household incandescent bulbs.

“We have seen the number of incandescent drop dramatically over the last three or four years,” said Norm Hill, director of central stores. “We issue about 30,000 bulbs a year out of storage.”

Hill said the vast majority of what is on campus are fluorescents and most of those are low mercury ones.

Hill said all the new and remodeled buildings are all using compact fluorescents now.

“One of the compact fluorescents puts out 400 lumens, but instead of 400 watts to power it, it uses 105 watts,” he said. “[Another] light uses 23 watts as opposed to the 90 watts the incandescent version uses.”

Hill said there are still some halogen and high-pressure sodium lamps scattered around campus too, but they are also being converted.

“There never have been a lot of incandescent used on campus. In closets and older buildings, there are some still used but [facilities planning and management] has done a real aggressive job of shifting to the compact fluorescents,” Whalen said.

Hill said a current change is in the four foot long lamps that are found all around campus. The T12 lamp is being taken out in favor of the T8 model, which will save more money in the long run.

“The light bulb technology changes just as fast as any other high tech industry,” Hill said. “It takes nearly no time for something new to come around.”

There have been some incidents of crews needed to clean up spills involving the mercury in the lamps.

“Some vandals threw a whole tube of them down the elevator shaft in Agronomy a couple years ago,” Whalen said. “It required a company to come in and clean it up.”

Local disposal

There is no place that will collect fluorescent lamps other than the Resource Recovery Plant, 110 Center St., and no place that will collect them in Boone County.

The Resource Recovery Plant will collect the fluorescent bulbs and then transport them for safe disposal through Metro Waste Authority of Des Moines. The company will dispose of the lamps properly.

“We budget about $70,000 a year for the transportation to Des Moines,” said Robert Weidner, lead operator at the Resource Recovery Plant. “There is no charge for people just bringing in their hazardous materials in since it is already paid for through taxes.”

Weidner said the city is working to increase awareness about the recycling service.

“We have upped our budget to increase our awareness,” he said. “We recently met with realtors to tell people we offer the service.”

While not every lamp is caught before entering the incinerator, the chance of a lamp causing damage is “minute.”

Recycling process

Iowa State is required to recycle everything due to guidelines set by the EPA.

Whalen said that though the materials are recycled, it costs the university money to do so.

“Recycling is kind of a misnomer, because very few materials are actually recyclable at zero loss or profit,” he said. “The components that are in the lamp and everything, sure they have some value once they are separated, but the companies can’t recycle the bulbs, computer monitors without some cost.”

HTR-Group in Lake Ozark, MO., provides recycling for Iowa State as well as the other two state universities and the Iowa Department of Transportation.

Ray Kohout, chief operating officer at HTR-Group, said nothing from the lamps goes to waste.

“We recycle 100 percent of the lamps that come here,” he said. “We don’t even have a dumpster here.”

Kohout said the lamps are broken down in glass, which is a majority of the waste, metal, calcium phosphate and mercury. The calcium phosphate can be used in fertilizer, and the mercury is sent to a refining company and will then be put back into the lamp industry. However, the company does not make much money off of reselling raw materials.

“Less than one percent of our revenue comes from selling the recycled material,” Kohout said. “Essentially, all of our money comes from contracts from those [who pay for our services].”

Whalen said the price has decreased since the university first started recycling.

“Years ago, it cost like a dollar, and now it’s down in the pennies because they have improved their technology.”