The new year is coming up soon and it’s time to start thinking about New Year’s resolutions. We here at Aquatic Life would love to make a New Year’s resolution suggestion. Let’s make an effort to protect our environment and recycle used lamps.
Aquatic Life fixtures use lamps such as compact fluorescents, T5HO and high intensity discharge (HID) lamps that contain small amounts of mercury.
The mercury is contained within the lamp and is not exposed to the environment unless the lamp is broken at the end of its life. Usually the mercury is never exposed until someone is swapping out the fixtures lamps and throws the bulbs in the trash causing them to break open. Or if they survive that process they can break open when tossed in the trash truck on the way to the landfill.
While lamps are not a major source of mercury pollution, the improper disposal of large numbers of lamps does add to mercury in the environment. Burning hazardous wastes or incineration of disposed materials can also release mercury into the environment. The greatest source of man-made mercury emissions, at 40%, is from fossil-fuel burning power plants. *
The best way to prevent the release of mercury from lighting is to recycle lamps and not dispose of them in the solid waste stream. Recycling lamps captures the mercury, allowing it to be reused.
A fantastic resource tool is www.lamprecycle.org feel free to look around the site and read some more on the subject. While there you can also determine where your local drop off is. Most Home Depot centers for example have a lamp drop off program.
If you have any thoughts on the subject feel free to let us know in the comments below.
*Statistics taken from www.lamprecycle.org
Sincerely,
