The Hindu Business Line : <I>Effect of CFLs on environment </I>

All Fluorescent Lamps ("tube" lights), including Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs), contain mercury, a highly toxic metal. With the campaign to Ban the Bulb and replace all of them with CFLs gaining momentum, some commentators — including environmentalists — have pointed to the toxic nightmare that large-scale use of CFLs could potentially create.

It has also been suggested that it might be better to wait for Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) before we make the switch. But CFLs do not add to the mercury released to the environment while providing significant greenhouse gas emission reductions. On the contrary, over their life-time, CFLs reduce the overall amount of mercury released into the environment from the production and use of electricity.

The best way to tackle the mercury problem arising from CFLs is to enact legislation that simultaneously sets progressively higher standards for lighting efficiency over a well-defined timeline and puts the onus on the lighting manufacturers to implement take-back and safe disposal practices.

Greenpeace has delivered a model legislation that demands that systems be put in place to implement both of the above. As per USEPA data, over a period of five years (lifetime of the CFL), 13.6 mg of mercury is released into the environment from coal burnt to power an ordinary incandescent bulb. This figure is likely to be higher in India as we use more coal to produce the same amount of energy, as compared to the US.

The comparison

In comparison, replacing an incandescent bulb with a CFL will reduce the energy requirement and hence the mercury emissions to 25 per cent, that is, 3.3 mg. A CFL contains between 2 mg and 5 mg of mercury. In the overall picture therefore, replacing an incandescent bulb with CFL will reduce the amount of mercury that goes into the environment from 13.6 mg to 8.3 mg over the lifetime of the CFL.

This, however, does not diminish the dangers of exposure to mercury in households from broken CFLs. For many decades now, Indian households and waste management systems have been exposed to mercury without any proper safeguards via tubelights, which contain 5-46 mg mercury.

Mandatory replacement of bulbs with CFLs will create a much bigger challenge. Without a doubt, the disposal of CFLs needs much greater care than those of incandescent lamps. While the technology for safe disposal and recycling is available, the challenge of ensuring that such systems are implemented is enormous.

Producer Responsibility

It is important to enshrine extended producer responsibility as part of the legislation that mandates the replacement of incandescent bulbs. This will ensure that the used CFLs become progressively less toxic and are at the end-of-use properly collected and recycled.

The manufacturers should be required to phase out hazardous substances in their CFLs as soon as environmentally sustainable alternatives are available (mandatory substitution), establish take-back schemes and ensure effective recycling of CFLs. To reconcile the aspirations of all stakeholders, Greenpeace has proposed a "top-runner" legislation to improve lighting efficiency in a time-bound manner by setting progressively higher standards. This will ensure that newer technologies, such as LEDs (which are an order of magnitude more efficient than CFLs) that are in the pipeline automatically become the norm in an aggressive time-frame.

(The author is Executive Director, Greenpeace India.)