Compact fluorescent light globes
beat incandescent globes on
energy efficiency, but their
mercury content could be a nasty
problem unless disposal proce-
sses are thought through.
Photo by GWMullis.

While the Australian Government’s move to phase out incandescent light bulbs in favour of compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) by 2010 has been welcomed as an important initiative against global warming, concern has been raised that discarded fluorescent lights bring a new environmental problem – higher levels of poisonous mercury in landfill.

At the moment, most used fluorescent tubes are dumped in landfill. Australian Council of Recyclers CEO, Anne Prince, says the move to fluorescent lights without corresponding legislation governing their disposal is ‘an ecological disaster in the making’.

‘It is time for Australia to join the rest of the industrialised world in banning the dumping of fluorescent lights in landfill and introducing a collection system to ensure proper recycling,’ she says.

While intact fluorescent tubes and bulbs are safe to handle and use, when broken during disposal, mercury – a known neurotoxin – is released.

Recycling firm, Advanced Recycling Australasia, says all the materials from discarded fluorescent tubes, including glass, aluminium, steel and mercury, can be successfully recycled.

The company’s CEO, Doug Rowe, says phasing out incandescent lighting without bringing in proper recycling laws for fluorescents is ‘simply swapping one environmental problem for another’.

Professor John Buckeridge, Head of the School of Civil, Environmental and Chemical Engineering at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, says the public health effects of having millions of mercury-contained fluorescent tubes dumped in landfill will be ‘disastrous’, with possible severe environmental and health costs including mercury poisoning’s effects on the nervous systems of both humans and animals.