Letter to the Editor concerning CFLs

Bravo to the Liberal government of Ontario for deciding to ban the sale of most incandescent lightbulbs in favour of compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) and other efficient light sources. I would like to allay concerns about the small amount of mercury (about the size of the tip of a ball point pen or 1% of the amount found in the old mercury thermometers) inside CFLs. First of all, the City of Kingston accepts and safely recycles CFLs at our Household Hazardous Waste facility. Second, over half of Ontario’s marginal electricity production is from burning coal and burning coal also releases mercury. It turns out that the mercury released from burning coal to provide the extra energy needed by an incandescent bulb is comparable to the mercury inside the CFL anyways. If you accidentally break a CFL, sweep it up and open your windows for a while to let any fumes escape. Let’s use CFLs to reduce our electricity consumption and get closer to being able to shut down Ontario’s coal burning power plants.