Fluorescent lighting offers tremendous energy savings, but responsibly dealing with failed lamps and ballasts is extremely important.
Photo: Philips
The benefits of fluorescent lighting are well known. Fluorescent lights catechumen electricity into illumination three to five times every bit efficiently as incandescent lights. Lamp life is far longer. And improvements in fluorescent lighting applied science—electronic ballasts and high-quality, tri-chromatic ballasts—make fluorescent lighting a fully adequate substitute for incandescent lighting in nearly all applications.
While offering tremendous environmental advantages through energy savings, the disposal of used fluorescent lighting equipment raises serious ecology concerns. Fluorescent lamps contain the toxic heavy metallic mercury. Magnetic ballasts made prior to the late 1970s comprise highly toxic polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).
Doing the correct thing from an environmental standpoint generally ways incorporating fluorescent lighting into our buildings. But it also means properly dealing with disposal of whatever older fluorescent and HID lighting equipment that is being removed and minimizing any new toxics introduced.
Fluorescent Lamps and Mercury
Fluorescent lamps piece of work by passing an arc of electricity through mercury vapor in the lamp. The charged mercury atoms give off ultraviolet (UV) lite, which is absorbed by a phosphor pulverization coating on the inside of the cylindrical glass lamp. Thus energized, these phosphors emit the white light that nosotros encounter. To generate the mercury vapor, a small corporeality of elemental (liquid) mercury is added to each lamp during manufacture. This mercury is instantly vaporized when the lamp is turned on, and it recondenses when the lamp is turned off. You can come across this small droplet of mercury if you slowly tip a fluorescent tube back and along. Virtually types of HID (high-intensity belch) lamps—mercury vapor, metal halide, and high-pressure level sodium—as well contain mercury.
We are concerned most mercury because it is a potent neurotoxin with the potential to build up in the nutrient chain. During the 1950s, thousands of children in Japan were built-in with neurological disorders every bit a consequence of their mothers consuming fish from Minamata Bay that were contaminated with mercury from industrial waste. Inorganic mercury is readily absorbed by certain anaerobic bacteria in aquatic ecosystems and converted into organic forms, such every bit methyl mercury, that can be absorbed past aquatic plants and animals. As animals higher on the nutrient chain eat plants and animals containing mercury compounds, the mercury levels increase through a process called
bioaccumulation. Mercury is one of the few trace metals that bioaccumulates in food bondage. A walleye pike can take a mercury concentration 250,000 times that of the water it lives in.
In a fluorescent lamp, mercury atoms are energized by an electric arc, generating UV light. The phosphor absorbs this UV and emits visible calorie-free.
Roughly 1-3rd of the mercury in our air and water comes from natural sources, such as volcanoes and woods fires; the rest comes from anthropogenic (human) sources. Coal-fired ability plants and incineration of municipal solid waste are the leading sources of airborne mercury in the U.S. (see sidebar below). Approximately one gram of airborne mercury falls on a xx-acre lake each yr from airborne sources. Currently, 38 states have fishery advisories for high mercury levels on one or more bodies of h2o—meaning that the fish might exist dangerous to eat.
Mercury tin can likewise get into aquatic systems past leaching from landfills into groundwater, and from there into streams and rivers. In 1989, 643,000 kg of mercury was discarded in municipal solid waste in the U.S., according to a 1992 EPA written report, and 84% of this was landfilled. Household batteries were past far the largest contributor of mercury in solid waste in 1989, with other sources, including paints and pigments (4.0%), thermostats and thermometers (3.9%), mercury-containing lamps (three.8%), and dental waste (0.five%). Due to reductions in mercury use in batteries, the share of mercury from fluorescent and HID lamps was projected to spring to 13.3% of the mercury in municipal solid waste matter by 1995, with fluorescent lamps accounting for 97% of that and HID lamps 3%. The EPA Role of Solid Waste estimates that roughly 600 meg fluorescent lamps are discarded each year.
The amount of mercury in fluorescent lamps is quite variable, depending on the blazon of lamp and when it was made. T-12 lamps (which are 12/8ths of an inch—38 mm—in diameter) contain a lot more mercury than T-8 lamps (viii/8ths of an inch—25 mm—in diameter), and the mercury use per lamp has dropped considerably over the past xv years. Virtually 48-inch (1.ii m) T-12 fluorescent lamps in use today take 20 to lx milligrams of mercury in them, though some accept as much as 80 mg, and new ones boilerplate 22.8 mg. The thinner (and more free energy-efficient) T-8 lamps existence made today contain an boilerplate of 14 mg, and one visitor, Philips Lighting, has reduced mercury levels far below that (come across sidebar). Compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) are highly variable in their mercury content, with an industry average of iv mg.
Over time, some of the mercury in a fluorescent lamp migrates into the phosphor powder, the glass, and the aluminum electrodes in the lamp finish-caps. To safely remove mercury from discarded fluorescent and HID lamps and prevent release into the environment, careful recycling and reprocessing is required. There are several dozen companies in the U.S. that specialize in mercury recovery from fluorescent and HID lamps.
Philips ALTO™ depression-mercury fluorescent lamps have replaced more than 3,000 old bulbs at the John G. Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. Over 61 grams of mercury have thus been removed from Shedd's ceilings, where information technology represents a serious hazard to the aquatic environment.
Photo: Edward Grand. Lines, Jr., John G. Shedd Aquarium
In near states, discarding large numbers of fluorescent lamps in municipal solid waste matter is now prohibited, but the regulations vary widely from state to state and are confusing. Nether federal police force, fluorescent lamps are considered hazardous waste if they fail the toxic char- acteristic leaching procedure (TCLP) test. Under this test, the waste tin contain no more than 0.2 mg of mercury per liter of waste material. Although some companies continue to argue that at that place is doubt about whether fluorescent lamps pass or fail the TCLP test, the most definitive study to date—
Management of Used Fluorescent Lamps: Preliminary Take chances Assessment – Final Report (Revised May 14, 1993), produced for the EPA—states that "fluorescent lamps definitely exhibit the hazardous toxicity characteristic as divers by the TCLP." (The report did not address Philips' new ALTO lamps.)
There is currently a hot debate going on in Washington near how to treat discarded fluorescent lamps under federal regulations. Two of the largest lamp manufacturers—General Electrical and Osram Sylvania—are pushing the EPA to grant lamps a special exemption to the regulations governing hazardous waste material disposal. Nether this designation, they would be considered "conditionally exempt" and could be landfilled at will. Michael Bender, Executive Director of the recently formed Coalition of Lamp Recyclers, worries that this move could put the 30-plus fluorescent lamp recycling companies that accept been formed in the past several years out of business concern.
The other major lamp manufacturer—Philips—has invested a great deal of money redesigning their lamps to reduce the mercury content, and they back up stricter regulation of discarded lamps with high mercury levels. "Our competitors are asking for a conditional exemption, and nosotros think that's a mistake," Philips' Steve Goldmaker told
EBN.
The other option EPA is because for lamp waste management is to
let lamps to fall nether the Universal Waste Rule, a designation—rather than conditional exemption —that would simplify ruddy tape for recycling. Michael Bender promotes the Universal Waste Rule designation for discarded lamps. "We have not seen a decision considering nearly all state agencies are strongly opposed to the conditional exemption," he told
EBN. The fact that EPA has and then far failed to rule out the conditional exemption for fluorescent lamps shows how much sway its supporters hold in Washington.
PCB ballasts collected in 55-gal. drums for recycling.
Source: FulCircle, Inc.
Fifty-fifty nether the Universal Waste product Dominion most small-scale generators of hazardous waste—less than 100 kg of total hazardous waste matter per month (300 to 450 four-foot F40 lamps)—could remain exempt from disposal regulations for high-mercury-content fluorescent lamps. Pocket-sized generators business relationship for an estimated xv% of the fluorescent lamps entering the waste matter stream. Minnesota and Wisconsin are the only states that currently outlaw disposal of all fluorescent lamps in the municipal solid waste. A list of regulations state-by-state is bachelor in the EPA brochure
Lighting Waste Disposal, or online from the EPA world wide web.epa.gov/greenlights.html.
Safe recycling of fluorescent lamps involves separation of the three main components of the lamp: glass, aluminum end-caps, and phosphor pulverization (which is where most of the mercury resides in a used lamp). Technologies be to crush and carve up these materials very effectively, reclaiming nearly all of the mercury. The recovered mercury is triple-distilled and sold on the commodity market. Other recovered materials tin too be marketed. Philips, for example, uses a lot of recycled phosphor in its new lamps, according to Goldmaker.
Mercury Technologies International has been recycling fluorescent lamps since 1992 and recycles 100% of the lamp waste, according to Emily Betterly of the company'southward Hayward, California facility. "Aught goes to the landfill," she says. Afterwards extraction of mercury, recovered glass from the visitor's California operation is shipped to a manufacturer of fiberglass insulation. Recovered aluminum is shipped to a smelter. And recovered phosphor pulverization is processed into a product for the mining industry. After purification, mercury is sold on the open market.
Because the value of recovered products from lamp recycling is relatively low—mercury is worth less than $two.40 per pound ($5.30/kg)—we have to pay to properly dispose of used lamps, and this cost is meaning. The cost for fluorescent lamp recycling typically ranges from 24¢ to 60¢ per F40 lamp, with an boilerplate of 40¢ per lamp. This is a significant toll, considering that new lamps cost as little as $2 each. HID lamp recycling typically costs $1.25 to $4.l per lamp, with an average of $ii.50. These estimated costs do non include packaging or shipping.
In some means, more troubling than the mercury in fluorescent and HID lamps are the polychlorinated bi-phenyls (PCBs) in old ballasts. Until 1979, virtually all fluorescent and HID ballasts were fabricated with capacitors that contained PCBs. These ballasts each contain approximately 0.vi to 1.0 ounces (17-28 g) of xc%-pure PCB, in a clear or yellow, oily liquid form. Some may as well incorporate PCBs in the tarry asphaltic "potting" material that is used as insulation in the anchor. The EPA estimates that at that place are 200 meg to 800 1000000 PCB-containing ballasts currently in utilise today— containing up to 40 meg pounds (15,000 tonnes) of PCB.
The health and environmental risks of PCBs are well known and widely accepted. PCBs cause a broad range of health bug, ranging from liver injury and skin disorders to reproductive bug—PCBs can mimic natural hormones and disrupt the endocrine system. Like mercury, PCBs tend to bioaccumulate in natural ecosystems, then that elevation predators have PCB levels many thousands of times higher than the background levels. In fact, the PCB level found in a expressionless beluga whale in the St. Lawrence River—500 parts per million—was ten times the level required to designate a material as hazardous waste in Canada! A dramatic drop in reproductive rates of belugas has been found in the river. Even in the Arctic, far from industrial sources of PCBs, researchers take found extremely loftier PCB levels in remote Inuit populations where the people chase and fish for their food—the PCBs came from lower latitudes where they built up through the food chain.
Federal regulations clearly spell out the proper disposal of PCBs—and the potential liability of non doing so. On a federal level, PCBs are regulated by the Toxic Substances Control Act and the Superfund Law (the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, or CERCLA). The Toxic Substances Command Deed is express, primarily prohibiting disposal of PCB- containing ballasts only if they are leaking PCBs. The Superfund Law specifically defines PCB as a hazardous substance and prohibits the disposal of more than than one pound. Nether the constabulary, the "release" or "threat of release" of more than a pound of PCBs (16-25 ballasts' worth) in a landfill triggers a Super-fund action—thus, whatsoever landfill where a significant number of ballasts are dumped could become a Superfund site. A memo from the Region 7 EPA office in 1991 concluded that the disposal of 8 or more PCB-containing ballasts in a landfill is bailiwick to the reporting requirements under the Superfund Police force—and that "failure to study places the private or firm in violation of CERCLA 103."
The EPA has proposed dominion changes that would tighten federal standards for PCB disposal, but at the same time streamline red tape. Under the proposed rule, a fluorescent ballast would exist considered hazardous waste matter if the potting material independent PCBs (currently if capacitors are non leaking PCBs, they can exist disposed of in municipal landfills in most states). The dominion change would besides reduce not-regulated disposal of non-leaking ballasts by a waste generator to ane pound of PCB (about 25 ballasts) per
year.
PCB ballasts are farther regulated by the Section of Transportation and the Occupa- tional Rubber and Health Administration (OSHA). Plus, states have various other regulations regarding disposal of PCB ballasts, with some states banning landfill disposal of PCB ballasts altogether.
Federal law requires that ballasts manufactured later on July 1, 1978 that practise non incorporate PCBs must be labeled "No PCBs." You should presume that any ballast that is non specifically marked equally existence complimentary of PCBs contains the toxin.
To complicate things, many old PCB ballasts leak. Note that leaking articulate or yellowish oil (pure PCB) is a lot more dangerous than leaking tar, even though the latter seems a lot messier. Non all of this asphaltic potting cloth contains PCBs, and if it does, information technology is probably merely at a concentration of l ppm or then (vs. 900,000 ppm for the PCB in the capacitor). Leaky ballasts should be handled differently and extremely advisedly, due to take a chance of contagion from the PCB (come across recommendations in sidebar below).
Fortunately, PCBs can be effectively destroyed in high-temperature hazardous waste incinerators. The safest approach is either to ship ballasts to a specialized PCB incinerator, of which there are merely a few in the U.S., or to deliver ballasts to a facility that removes the four-ounce (124 g) capacitors for incineration and recycles the other uncontaminated metals—which account for roughly 80% of the weight. Capacitor incineration/ballast recycling typically costs $iv-$half-dozen per anchor, and whole-ballast incineration typically costs $6-$x per anchor.
When ballast manufacturers learned about the health and environmental hazards associated with PCBs, some switched to Di (2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), which is also chancy. Widely used equally a plasticizer in PVC, DEHP is listed in the
7th Annual Written report on Carcinogens as being "reasonably anticipated" to be carcinogenic. In pure class, DEHP is listed as a hazardous waste under RCRA. However, co-ordinate to EPA, once it has been used in a lighting ballast, information technology is no longer considered hazardous. DEHP is also regulated under the Superfund Law, with a 100-pound (37 kg) threshold for reporting. In other words, if disposing of 100 pounds of DEHP (about 1600 DEHP ballasts) in a 24-hour period, notification of the National Resource Eye (800/424-8802) is required. DEHP was used in certain ballasts starting in 1979, then eliminated from ballasts for four-pes fluorescent lamps in 1985 and from ballasts for viii-foot lamps and HID fixtures in 1991. DEHP is far less of a concern than PCBs. To avoid future concerns nearly substances in fluorescent ballasts, specify only electronic—not magnetic—ballasts.
Final Thoughts
Environmentally responsible building is more than simply choosing the right materials and producing energy-efficient buildings. Information technology requires considering the entire lifecycle of a building and what goes into it. In some cases, fifty-fifty with best intentions, we have put products into our buildings that tin result in significant wellness and environmental harm. So information technology is with fluorescent lighting.
Fifty-fifty though there is a pregnant cost involved, proper disposal of fluorescent lamps and older ballasts should be an extremely loftier priority for any contractor concerned near the environment. The costs of proper disposal should exist included in the toll of whatever relamping and demolition work—and clients should be made aware of why those costs are included. Recommendations on equipment selection and disposal are included in the checklist above.
For more than information:
EPA Green Lights Program
Green Lights Hotline:
888/782-7938, 202/775-6680 (fax)
world wide web.epa.gov/greenlights.htmlAsk for publication
Lighting Waste Disposal for listings of lamp and ballast recycling companies.
Michael Bender, Executive Director
Coalition of Lamp Recyclers
RR 5, Box 230
Montpelier, VT 05602
802/223-9000, 802/223-7914 (fax)
Philips Lighting Company
P.O. Box 6800
Somerset, NJ 08875
800/555-0050, 908/563-3641 (fax)
www.lighting.philips.com/nam/
(1997, Oct 1). Disposal of Fluorescent Lamps and Ballasts. Retrieved from https://www.buildinggreen.com/feature/disposal-fluorescent-lamps-and-ballasts
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