This article is from the In-Depth Report Lightbulb Frenzy in the 21st Century

Are Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs Dangerous?

Compact fluorescent lightbulbs contain a minuscule amount of mercury, and you can't safely ignore potential contact with it


Lightbulbs break all the time. So why would a single broken bulb in a Maine household trigger the state's Department of Environmental Protection to refer the homeowner to a decontaminator?

The answer lies in the type of bulb that broke—a compact fluorescent lightbulb—and what was inside that bulb. Compact fluorescents, like their tubular fluorescent precursors, contain a small amount of mercury—typically around five milligrams. Mercury is essential to a fluorescent bulb's ability to emit light; no other element has proved as efficient.



State and federal government agencies say that breakages, though deserving of caution, can usually be cleaned up inexpensively with household goods. (In the Maine case, the state acknowledges providing the referral but insists the homeowner was informed that such a step was unnecessary.)

Jim Berlow, director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Hazardous Waste Minimization and Management Division, recommends starting by opening the windows and stepping outside. "Any problems at all frequently are handled for the most part by quickly ventilating the room," he says. "Get all the people and pets out of the room for 15 minutes and let the room air out. If you have a central heating system or an HVAC [heating, ventilating and air-conditioning] system, you don't want it sucking the fumes around, so shut that down."





And compact fluorescent bulbs actually reduce the mercury pollution from the single largest U.S. source: coal-fired power plants. "Probably the most important thing that people need to connect with compact fluorescents is that they save significant quantities of energy," Berlow adds. "We're talking about two thirds to three quarters of the energy associated with lighting being reduced."

James Dakin, senior consulting engineer at GE Lighting in Cleveland, says that a mercury-free lighting replacement may be in the works: light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are advancing rapidly. "LEDs are perhaps the most promising mercury-free alternative," he says, "but they currently fall far short in the overall efficiency/color/cost trade-off."

But for as long as fluorescents reign, don't look for a mercury phaseout. "Lots of other atoms and molecules have been investigated," Dakin explains, "but nobody has found anything as practical and efficient as mercury."

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