(OilPrice) Despite the wide, and almost exclusive, adoption of CFLs and LEDs in place of the original design, a life-cycle analysis http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es302886m has shown that there may be an environmental legacy, beyond carbon emissions, or their reduction, in the form of toxic metals, especially copper, lead, mercury and zinc, with smaller amounts of arsenic and antimony, which needs to be given greater consideration. The analysis accounts both for the metals that are present and their expected lifetimes in the environment, and concludes that both CFLs and LEDs should be classified as hazardous waste, in particular because of their lead content, which can be leached at 132 and 44 mg/l, respectively, and well above the accepted threshold of 5mg/l.. The amount of copper is also at issue, being 111,000 and 31,600 mg/kg respectively, in comparison with the accepted limit of 2500 mg/kg.
Low-energy light bulbs not so 'green' after all?
Environmental analysis concludes CFLs should be classified as hazardous wastes
By WND News Services
Published January 25, 2013 at 1:35am
