Posted on 07/23/2011 7:27:15 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
In what critics call a classic case of the government working at cross purposes, Washington is forcing residents across the country to install mercury lighting inside their homes while phasing out mercury lighting outside homes to protect the environment.
Yes, you read that right.
In 2005, Congress passed a law banning mercury vapor streetlights two years before it banned incandescent light bulbs in favor of mercury vapor compact florescent bulbs.
Under the Energy Policy Act, signed by President Bush in August 2005, manufacturers cannot make or import ballasts for mercury vapor lights after Jan. 1, 2008. According to the act, mercury vapor security lights are being phased out to "protect the environment" and to "promote energy efficiency" in lighting.
Utility companies across the country have been replacing mercury vapor street lamps with high-pressure sodium fixtures or metal halide fixtures, which are twice as efficient as mercury vapor and possibly safer. The EPA classifies mercury as a hazardous material.
Yet the federal government is pushing consumers to replace traditional incandescent bulbs used in their homes with compact fluorescents containing toxic mercury vapor.
A former Energy Department official says there's a regulatory "disconnect" regarding mercury lighting.
"We're removing mercury from outside the home while adding it inside," he said. "It makes no sense."
In 2007 two years after enacting the ban on outdoor mercury lighting Congress passed the Energy Independence and Security Act, also signed by Bush. It mandated the use of compact florescent lighting in U.S. homes by making incandescent bulbs a controlled substance and outlawing the 100-watt bulb by 2012, and all other wattages by 2014.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
ping
Just another reason I wasn’t at all happy with Bush as POTUS...
If mercury is illegal outside, it should be illegal inside. But then they’ll probably make us switch to sodium-vapor CFLs. Welcome to Yellow World.
It scares me to think of the 48-inch fluorescent bulbs I smashed over the years because they wouldn’t fit in the trash otherwise.
The banning spoken of was not for mercury vapor bulbs, but the energy wasting ballasts they used. The ban was not related to the mercury in the bulbs.
Mercury Vapor lamps emit 50% less light every 5 years of life, yet draw the same amount of current, making them incredible energy wasters after just a couple years.
So, as much as I dislike CFL’s, this article doesn’t make too much sense.
Lord...don’t even go there!
Two of the evil things broke in my art room to which the dogs have access.
I had to shut the door to the art studio, run the dogs to the other side of the house [with *3* doors between them and the studio] open the outside door/windows in the studio and *then* start to ~carefully~ clean it up with a damp sponge and spray mister full of water.
I can’t imagine the concentrations that wet, sticky, sniffing, floor-level noses could accumulate.
To top it off, there’s only *one* brand that has a color temp/flicker rate that doesn’t make me want to commit murder or suicide.
I seriously hate those damn things.
[and unless we’re “doing something wrong”, they haven’t made even a tiny dent in our electric bill, either]
Yeah...that’s a pretty freaky thought.
I hear ya’. I’ve had a circuit melt down on a CFL. It was contained, but it stunk up the house. It’s a complex bulb compared to the incandescents.
I’m not adverse to technology, but the jackasses in DC forced this crap down our throats completely screwing the natural cycle of demand, cost, and quality.
Thanks to CFLs, the nightly ambient warmth of our neighborhoods has been lost to an industrial blue haze.
While I detest class-action lawsuits you and other should join in the future class-action against the makers of mercury lightbulbs. It is a testament to the stupidity of liberalism and the nanny state that we are introducing a toxic and damaging substance into our homes to be more “environmental”.
Think of all the super-fund cleanup sites we will have at landfills.
Crazy! I bet there will be a huge class-action soon. While there are certainly more important decisions to be made in D.C. this one is absolute proof of how truly broken our country is.
I had that happen with the reading light hovering right over my head...and never knew about it until I looked at one night, for no apparent reason.
[I have no sense of smell so *that* didn’t alert me]
The base was scorched and half melted yet the light was still working...until I threw the evil thing in the trash
My last mercury level test was up from a 4 to a 9.
Coincidence, I’m sure.
/s
I’d cheerfully join it even though I know I’d get about $3 after the legal sharks get their chunks of meat.
Spite is good enough for me.
I live in the *huge* Potomac watershed area.
The local landfill is about 13 miles away.
Spring has become “monsoon season” here lately and I can just picture the mercury from the thousands upon thousands of discarded light bulbs happily seeping its way underground, into the streams and aquifers, winding down-river, into the bay and out to the ocean.
It’s just such a wonderfully “green” scenario, isn’t it?
*sigh*
Signs and symptoms
Common symptoms of mercury poisoning include peripheral neuropathy (presenting as paresthesia or itching, burning or pain), skin discoloration (pink cheeks, fingertips and toes), swelling, and desquamation (shedding of skin).
Mercury is thought to inactivate S-adenosyl-methionine, which is necessary for catecholamine catabolism by catechol-o-methyl transferase. Due to the body’s inability to degrade catecholamines (e.g. Epinephrine) a person suffering from mercury poisoning may experience profuse sweating, tachycardia (persistently faster-than-normal heart beat), increased salivation, and hypertension (high blood pressure).
Possibly because I’m so small and thin, I had the muscle weakness [and still do, to some extent], was very sensitive to light [and still am], rode an emotional roller coaster, couldn’t remember *squat* and -still- have the insomnia.
My levels are now within “acceptable range”.
When do the freaking residual side effects go away??
Screw GAIA.
“It scares me to think of the 48-inch fluorescent bulbs I smashed over the years because they wouldnt fit in the trash otherwise.”
I still do it today....I’m a bit of a rebel...Then I go have a smoke.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.