Comments on: "Green" Light Bulb Buying Guide

Danny Seo Explains Differences Among Them, Suggests Choices For Different Spots In Homes

[mollydtt]

I think the CFL bulbs are a good idea, but sadly, I don't think people will dispose of them properly. They will just throw them in the trash and they will be all over the landfills.

They are considered hazardous waste, and some cities may not make it easy to dispose of them. More education is needed to keep this from becoming a pollution problem.

[extremophil]

How many "environmental lifestyle experts" does it take to change a lightbulb, anyway?

[Syndicate]

CFLs contain mercury. Mercury is bad, very bad for the environment. Whats even worse is if you break a CFL bulb in your house. Do spend $2,000 dollars for a haz mat team to clean it up or do you let it be and hope your children don't get sick? The LED lights are fantastic. The CFLs will kill you.

[michellem99-2009]

We live in an old an apt. building and I tryed them lights the story talks about. They wont work here. I have a clip on lamp on the dresser to light computer when needed. But as a legally blind person, I need bright lighting to see. I have a hallugen light I use when needed. That can be dimmed. 60 watt is too dim to light the room to see. Plus the wiring was done in the 50s. So we have to be mindful of that. Some fixures can't use the new light blubs as one postee said. Yer right.

[epjackson]

I relpaced everything except the bulbs on the dimmer switch, before I found this message. GE is asking consumers and its employees to sign a pledge to %u201Cgo green%u201D and start purchasing the CFL light bulbs, which are imported from China. The problem is that each pledge leads to the loss of jobs in U.S. lighting plants. GE is actually asking workers in its lighting plants to pledge to put themselves out of a job! Now I'm rethinking the issue.
epjackson

[timbobmc-2009]

I didn't know that the bulbs had to be recycled, but now that I do, I surely will. I'm just worried I eventually won't be able to get regular incandescent bulbs to keep my water pump warm on freezing nights. I guess I'll have to find another heat source.

[Razzl]

I replaced all of the incandescent bulbs in my house when electric bills shot up last Fall in New England. Here are some of my impressions:

savings--about 5-7%. I reduced my household wattage in a small house by 1800 watts. How good that will look on your bill will depend on how many lights you have and use in the house. For a small house it may not feel like a great savings, for a McMansion it may be glorious.

wattage--to get the lowest wattage bulbs (5-7w) available for bathroom vanities or chandeliers you may have to go to the web, as they don't carry them in retail places. You may as well get the lowest wattage to enhance the savings.

quality--current generation bulbs don't have harsh and they're actually better light than incandescent soft whites.

price--you can actually do better than the article describes. Walmart has been carrying the squiggle bulbs for ordinary 60w fixtures for as little as 89cents each. The problems some have described with length, size, depth and shape have all been solved. You should be able to find standard round-looking bulbs for every wattage if you hate the squiggles.

function--it takes a little getting used to the need to wait 5 seconds for the bulb to reach its full brightness. There still aren't models out there yet safe to use with dimmer switches or motion sensors, but I got around that by installing standard switches.

My entire home is outfitted with fluorescent light bulbs and my electric bill shows it too

[Rhoda Meier]

We have three-way CFLs in our lamps. They work fine. You need to let it warm up on the first click, then move to the second click and let it warm up, then move to the third click. But the light works great. Just look for bulbs that say 3-way on the package.

[zoltaric]

Sadly these will endup in landfills and mercury will leak into the groundwater. Because people are selfish and will not dispose of them properly.