LED lights
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We have a bin for fluorescents at the transfer station. They are not allowed to go to the dump.
I tried to get rid of some compact flourescent bulbs while visiting my mom in Virginia and I took them, and the Ace Hardware store I took them to (and where I was buying some LED replacements) told me to just put them in the trash, that nobody recycles those and they had never heard of recycling them. They didn't even know they contained mercury. Aargh.
What is the closest urban area? There may be a county solution or organization that takes them.
I understood that most (all?) orange and blue hardware box stores take them. I'm not sure if that's a NYS mandate, but it's worth a try.
DuaeGuttae
Minister of Fire
That is really disheartening, @DBoon , to hear of your experience at the Ace Hardware. Isn’t the information printed directly on the package of the bulbs they sell?
Seven years ago when I lived in northern Virginia, Home Depot and Lowes did take compact fluorescent bulbs as well as some batteries.
Now that I’ve moved back to my smaller hometown in Virginia, I know that our local transfer station has special provision for disposal of those items.
Seven years ago when I lived in northern Virginia, Home Depot and Lowes did take compact fluorescent bulbs as well as some batteries.
Now that I’ve moved back to my smaller hometown in Virginia, I know that our local transfer station has special provision for disposal of those items.
MongoMongoson
Feeling the Heat
I was an early adopter of LED home lighting. I started working for Cree in 2012, and we launched the Cree bulb in 2013. I replaced every bulb inside and outside of my house with Cree bulbs in 2013. I remember it cost me over $300.
The early bulbs were made in the USA and were hit or miss, more miss than hit I think. An acrylic adhesive was used for a short time to attach the glass globes to the base. It would yellow and harden under UV exposure, and the LEDs did put out a little UV. As a result, some globes fell off and aome would come off in your hand if you decided to move the bulb to another fixture. They switched to silicone adhesive pretty quickly. There were issues with counterfeit components which could cause the bulbs to strobe after so many power cycles. A mechanical part (not soldered) was used to make an electrical connection between the aluminum LED circuit board and the driver in the base. That part could creep over time, especially if the bulb was pointing down instead of up. That part was changed so it was positively retained.
The bulbs had a TEN YEAR warranty. I just kept bringing them back to Home Depot. Once I worked through all the infant mortality, they were solid. I can see a few of them running from where I am sitting now.
The quality of light from the Cree bulbs was very good. I could never go back to CFLs after having a quality LED light... but I know I am something of a light quality snob because I was in the lighting business for 10 years. Someone mentioned having fluorescent tubes in their shop and I shuddered. I have 90+ CRI Cree LED flat panels and my shop is lit up like the SUN, at 4000K color temperature.
I don't even know if Cree sells bulbs any longer. The lighting division has changed hands a couple of times over the last several years.
If they still sell them, they are probably pretty good bulbs now... but I didn't recommend them to people in the 2010's.
We were better at building streetlights, high bays, gas station lighting, and office lights than bulbs. Everything made at the Wisconsin factory was a quality light. The bulbs were made in North Carolina. I have a bunch of non-bulb Cree fixtures in my house (special deals, engineering test fixtures, those kinds of things) and they are all going strong.
The biggest challenge to making an LED bulb that can handle everyone's dirty power is the added cost. It might cost another dime, and that does not sound like much but I can tell you that another dime can make or break a bulb project.... especially now when LED lighting is a commodity. It was different when you could sell a bulb for $10. Or, $17. I paid $17 per bulb for the Insignia bulbs from Best Buy. Those were the first LED bulbs to have Cree LEDs in them... even before Cree started selling bulbs. I still have a couple of those and they still run great.
The early bulbs were made in the USA and were hit or miss, more miss than hit I think. An acrylic adhesive was used for a short time to attach the glass globes to the base. It would yellow and harden under UV exposure, and the LEDs did put out a little UV. As a result, some globes fell off and aome would come off in your hand if you decided to move the bulb to another fixture. They switched to silicone adhesive pretty quickly. There were issues with counterfeit components which could cause the bulbs to strobe after so many power cycles. A mechanical part (not soldered) was used to make an electrical connection between the aluminum LED circuit board and the driver in the base. That part could creep over time, especially if the bulb was pointing down instead of up. That part was changed so it was positively retained.
The bulbs had a TEN YEAR warranty. I just kept bringing them back to Home Depot. Once I worked through all the infant mortality, they were solid. I can see a few of them running from where I am sitting now.
The quality of light from the Cree bulbs was very good. I could never go back to CFLs after having a quality LED light... but I know I am something of a light quality snob because I was in the lighting business for 10 years. Someone mentioned having fluorescent tubes in their shop and I shuddered. I have 90+ CRI Cree LED flat panels and my shop is lit up like the SUN, at 4000K color temperature.
I don't even know if Cree sells bulbs any longer. The lighting division has changed hands a couple of times over the last several years.
If they still sell them, they are probably pretty good bulbs now... but I didn't recommend them to people in the 2010's.
We were better at building streetlights, high bays, gas station lighting, and office lights than bulbs. Everything made at the Wisconsin factory was a quality light. The bulbs were made in North Carolina. I have a bunch of non-bulb Cree fixtures in my house (special deals, engineering test fixtures, those kinds of things) and they are all going strong.
The biggest challenge to making an LED bulb that can handle everyone's dirty power is the added cost. It might cost another dime, and that does not sound like much but I can tell you that another dime can make or break a bulb project.... especially now when LED lighting is a commodity. It was different when you could sell a bulb for $10. Or, $17. I paid $17 per bulb for the Insignia bulbs from Best Buy. Those were the first LED bulbs to have Cree LEDs in them... even before Cree started selling bulbs. I still have a couple of those and they still run great.
Thanks for the story. I had a pile of those Cree bulbs with the glued on glass globes. Had quite a few globes pop off, and bulbs die young. None remain. I think I got them for a decent price (at the time), so I was annoyed, but not really angry. None remain at this point.
My (older) L-prize bulb and its derivatives lasted longer... I still have some of the latter in oddball locations.
My (older) L-prize bulb and its derivatives lasted longer... I still have some of the latter in oddball locations.
I've been in the LED industry since 2000 and seen some issues as you report. I am not a EE as you are, but the thermal and mechanical engineer. I've designed and tested a huge variety of LED systems, from traffic signals to flashlights to area lights to channel letters to refrigerator/freezer rail lamps to many types of general illumination bulbs. I still get calls 2-3 times a year on patent dispute cases in the field (expert witness role) as I have some two dozen patents.
Your cans should be adequate, but the disparity of 150W rating vs the 7W LED output isn't a true comparison. LEDs don't dissipate much heat by radiation as halogen and incandescent do, but more by convection (conduction at the die itself, but convection on the bulb exterior). And halogen/incandescent can easily take much higher temperatures than the LED driver components in the bulb base. Your can rating for a convectively cooled device is more likely 25-40W, though if your venting is good it could be more. Also, if the inside of your can is reflective around the driver, it isn't helping an LED bulb. Paint it.
If you take any of your failed bulbs, disassemble one and look at the driver. Being an EE you should find what is not working. My guess is the driver's capacitors are usually to blame as they use the cheap 85C electrolytic ones in the buck/boost circuits. The drivers get hot so this isn't unusual when the bulb environment is pushed even a little. If you repair it, put a thermal potting compound in it and not the cheap junk they use usually. That will help considerably. And many don't have any potting compound which only makes it worse for the driver.
Regarding the Virginia collection of compact fluourescents and tubes, the idea is not to drive myself crazy trying to find someplace in southern Virginia that will take them, but just to bring it all back to New York next time I go, and taking some packing materials with me so that I don't have a hazardous waste situation in my car.
I had an old Cree L-prize bulb until a couple of years ago - weighed a ton with a big mammoth heat sink around it. The early ones had a pseudo-tacky coating on the bulb (not sure why) that was very different. I still have some original straight-tube Osram compact flourescents in some hallway and closet applications and they must be more than 30 years old at this point. I remember paying something like $20 each for them from Real Goods, I think.
I recall the stat years ago (never verified) that the avoided mercury emissions from coal burning was far greater than the mercury in a CFL bulb. There is also that whole mercury vapor versus methyl mercury thing.
So I have never worried too much about CFL bulbs. If someplace takes them sure, otherwise, I will toss them.
So I have never worried too much about CFL bulbs. If someplace takes them sure, otherwise, I will toss them.
MongoMongoson
Feeling the Heat
The original Cree bulbs had glass globes, and the company would have been happy to ship them with only the plain glass globes... Some regulatory limitation would not allow them to. The old incandescent bulb was an ancient design that was grandfathered in and generally accepted as safe enough but anything new had to abide by newer regulations.
I really don't know why they went with glass rather than polycarbonate, but it was a choice they made. They coated the glass with a thin skin of silicone to meet the regulatory requirement. If the globe broke, it would remain intact enough to prevent exposure to dangerous voltage.
I peeled the tacky silicone off the Cree bulbs I had. Later designs used plastic globes.
Rough service incandescents used on string lights on construcution jobs had to have that shatterproof coating. Even with that after big outage many bulbs were broken and when they came out of storage for the next outage, we had cases of replacements.
lol... so the fuel consumption and emissions of driving a lightbulb 40 miles to the closest urban center is somehow better than throwing it in the trash??
I appreciate your perspective, and I agree on all points, except I'd also counter by saying manufacturers need to design these things to not fail when installed in the most common legacy fixtures. It's just good business. If the bulb is marketed as suitable for halogen replacement use, then it simply must operate reliably in fixtures designed for halogen bulbs!
These cans have ceramic sockets spring-clipped into the aluminum can. I'm not sure what the KT of the ceramic is, but there should be a thermal conduction path out through the wiring that's not totally terrible. The primary bottleneck would be the stranded (probably AWG-18?) pigtail on the fixture itself, and it's attachment point at the socket. If the ceramic has any KT above 1.5~2 W/m°K, then it'd also be sinking reasonable heat out to the aluminum shell of the fixture, but I don't really know anything about the type of porcelain or ceramic used in light fixtures.
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I initially "thumbed up" this post.
However, it bothers me.
Why add a little poison to [anything] because one has prevented a larger poisoning from happening...?!
I don't want to justify throwing mercury into the trash... but.
The dose makes the poison. What are the odds that me throwing my old CFL bulb in the trash will result in loss of human life? What are the expected deaths from 100 million households doing the same?
I don't know, nor have I ever seen a number. If you know, please tell me. Ofc its a 'no brainer', right? So that is why I have taken my old CFL bulbs to the big box stores (saving them up to not make a special trip, per Ashful).
But lets' compare that to the recent Dieselgate thread I put up to a round of collective yawns. NOx does in fact lead to premature human deaths. Older people having strokes and heart attacks, and living for years with the after effects or dying prematurely. And folks have counted up the numbers and they are LARGE. The NOx from various cheating makers is killing a lot of people, and the company will get a slap on the wrist and a fine. And people will keep buying diesels rather than, say, a gasoline alternative, or a diesel that is more expensive and less performant with annoying emission controls.
Why? BC they don't care.
I allow myself to not care about a single CFL bulb IF the box stores don't take them anymore.
I also believe that the human brain does a lot of weird math... 'It's OK that I drive an SUV, bc its safer', 'It's Ok that I drive an SUV bc I recycle'... so maybe someone says 'I do what I can... I drop off my batteries and CFL bulbs at the box store...' and then not think about doing anything else.
I try to rank order impacts and tackle the biggest ones first. And that involves letting a few drop to the bottom of the list.
We're considered rural and are unincorporated, yet we have 2 collection sites. Considering we have to drive 10 miles to get into town, no big deal to bring them when grocery shopping. Especially considering we don't need a gas guzzler to do this.lol... so the fuel consumption and emissions of driving a lightbulb 40 miles to the closest urban center is somehow better than throwing it in the trash??
If DBoon doesn't have this service within a reasonable distance, then organize and get it to happen.
Diesel is a lot more expensive than regular gas here. It's been that way for several years now and with the greater cost there has been a significant decline in these vehicles locally.
Not for me, and I know Ashful wasn't referencing me in particular, but that is why I held onto those bulbs in Virginia (for now) because I didn't want to drive around hoping to find someone to take them. I'll just bring them back to NY when I can transport them safely and take them to the country transfer station next time I go there (they take bulbs of all types).lol... so the fuel consumption and emissions of driving a lightbulb 40 miles to the closest urban center is somehow better than throwing it in the trash??
It is instructive when the most rural and poorest of counties in NY state has a transfer station that takes just about anything that is recyclable or hazardous waste, most times for free and sometimes with a $10 or $25 charge (e.g., old dehumidifiers) whereas a wealthier county in southeastern Virginia can't be bothered with any of this (I've been to their equivalent transfer station before and it is appalling what they refuse to take).
My sister had a rental house in West Virginia some years back and had to clean up some itesm that were classified as hazardous waste and she took them to the county transfer station and they told her "we don't take that, just put it in your trash or pay somebody else to take it". I'm sure most people just threw it in the landfill.
This is a strawman argument. It is the same as "MY CO2 doesn't kill anybody".
(Indeed, (methyl!)-mercury doesn't kill easily. But affects brain function. Slowly, over time. Because we can't excrete the stuff. )
See above.
Some data
Mercury blood levels below 5.8 \mu gr/L are considered safe.
In the US (women 16-49 y/o) the median is around 1 \mu gr/L, the 95th percentile is 4.1 \mu gr/L.
Breaking it down per ethnicity class, at least one 95th percentiles class is above that.
Data from here, which summarizes EPA data that I did not look at myself
Mercury biomonitoring study: MN Public Health Data Access -- MN Dept. of Health - MN Data
Learn about the Minnesota Biomonitoring study of mercury in pregnant women and their babies.
No, people don't immediately die. Yet their cognitive functions decline (just as with Pb).
Mercury in landfills is converted to methyl mercury (due to the anaerobic conditions).
And it concentrates in the foodweb (e.g. fish). Meaning that exposure is not as uniform as air-borne toxins.
The EPA asks to recycle too:
Recycling and Disposal of CFLs and Other Bulbs that Contain Mercury | US EPA
Consumers can help prevent the release of mercury into the environment by taking advantage of available local options for recycling CFLs and other household hazardous wastes, rather than disposing of them in regular household trash.
The Home Depot takes them:
How to Dispose of Lightbulbs
Learn how to dispose of different types of light bulbs safely. Some lightbulbs can be recycled. Read more to learn about light bulb disposal.
www.homedepot.com
Montgomery county (https://www.montgomerycountypa.gov/...tact CFL bulbs may be,throw them in the trash.):
Intact CFL bulbs may be taken to any Home Depot, Lowes, Ikea or Batteries + Bulbs stores for free proper disposal and recycling. Residents may also drop off up to ten (10) CFL bulbs at any county-sponsored household hazardous waste event for free disposal and recycling. Nationwide, over 670 million mercury-containing bulbs are discarded improperly each year.
Please DO NOT throw them in the trash.
The average bulb contains 4 milligrams of mercury. Times 670 million = 2,680,000 kg of mercury ending up in the environment - for no other reason than laziness to save them up and bring them to an orange or blue box store where most folks (on here) go to at least once every five years, I surmise.
It's like that bumper sticker that I like :
Exactly, like "my little mercury is not hurting anyone".
Even when it does not take any effort other than keeping them in a place (e.g. where batteries for recycling also go) and bringing them to a suitable place whenever one goes there anyway.
Agreed with all of Woodgeek's points and stoveliker's points (he was typing his reply as I was typing mine), and as Woodgeek pointed out, it doesn't mean we should "add a little poison" by not going to the bother of recycling flourescents, but if nobody recycled them it would result in a greater good than not using them at all.
Another way to think about how others think about this is that I had numerous environmentally-conscious friends back in the day who wouldn't use compact flourescents (this is before LEDs) because they contained mercury. Meanwhile, they continued to use incandescents back in the day when NY had something like 20%+ of electricity of generation coming from coal and another 40% from petroleum and natural gas. Meanwhile, the Adirondacks were being sulfur dioxide and mercury-poisoned by midwestern (and NY) coal generation. Yes, it is one small decision, but the logic used was upside down in terms of what was the greater good and the worse evil.
I do agree with this very much -
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Well, thanks for letting me know that Home Despot still takes these bulbs! The CFL collection box in my garage only has like 1 or 2, since I mostly switched to LEDs 4-5 years ago, and have already dropped those CFLs at Home Depot. 
My point here is that I want to know where the mercury in the food chain is coming from. If 90% of it is coming from current coal burning, or river or marine sediments being dredged up that were deposited before I was born... then I think a LOT of attention to CFLs is missing the point.
My oldest had a high level of Pb as an toddler. The pediatrician told me after a visit, that her blood level was 10.5, and the threshold for intervention was 10. I asked what the level had been a YEAR EARLIER, and he checked the sheet and said 9.5. I was livid. We lived in an old victorian, with safe/tested paint throughout the interior. But the soil around the foundation was filled with Pb, presumably from old exterior paint flaked (or stripped) into the soil decades earlier. Our dog was digging in that soil and tracking it into the house.
Hypothetically, if I had shopped at Whole Foods, and folks there were telling me to buy organic food bc it had less Pb in it, it would not have made a damn bit of difference.
On the Hg front, I think our food supply is a disaster. Humans need omega-3's for health, including pregnant and lactating women especially, and are told to avoid a long list of fish species. Most seeing that will simply avoid all fish, to their health detriment.
I take algal Omega-3's in a high dose. The US would be a healthier and less Hg poisoned place if we all did the same. But the FDA doesn't recommend such supplements due to an overly cautious (in my view) approach. And at current production scales, they are quite expensive.
My point here is that I want to know where the mercury in the food chain is coming from. If 90% of it is coming from current coal burning, or river or marine sediments being dredged up that were deposited before I was born... then I think a LOT of attention to CFLs is missing the point.
My oldest had a high level of Pb as an toddler. The pediatrician told me after a visit, that her blood level was 10.5, and the threshold for intervention was 10. I asked what the level had been a YEAR EARLIER, and he checked the sheet and said 9.5. I was livid. We lived in an old victorian, with safe/tested paint throughout the interior. But the soil around the foundation was filled with Pb, presumably from old exterior paint flaked (or stripped) into the soil decades earlier. Our dog was digging in that soil and tracking it into the house.
Hypothetically, if I had shopped at Whole Foods, and folks there were telling me to buy organic food bc it had less Pb in it, it would not have made a damn bit of difference.
On the Hg front, I think our food supply is a disaster. Humans need omega-3's for health, including pregnant and lactating women especially, and are told to avoid a long list of fish species. Most seeing that will simply avoid all fish, to their health detriment.
I take algal Omega-3's in a high dose. The US would be a healthier and less Hg poisoned place if we all did the same. But the FDA doesn't recommend such supplements due to an overly cautious (in my view) approach. And at current production scales, they are quite expensive.
There is a math error here going mg to kg. The correct estimate is 2560 kg, or 2.5 tonnes of Hg per year in the US.
A little googling suggests that coal combustion emissions was about 50 tonnes per year in 1998. Probably a third of that now due to less coal being used.
IIRC lighting was like 10% of electricity use back in the 1990's, so that suggests that the avoided coal emissions from switching incandescent to CFL would've been about 3 tons/yr assuming 40% efficiency. Comparable to their Hg content.
Conclusion: recycle your CFLs responsibly!
A regulatory webpage is here:
What EPA is Doing to Reduce Mercury Pollution, and Exposures to Mercury | US EPA
Learn about actions EPA, tribal and state agencies have taken to reduce mercury pollution and releases into the environment
This suggests Hg exposure regulation would avoid 11,000 premature deaths. If we assume that coal plants are half of total emissions (WAG) that means that 50 tonnes = 5000 premature deaths. and 2.5 tonnes (from not recycling CFLs) would cause 250 premature deaths per year.
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For NOx, the US figure is 171,000 premature deaths per year:
Communities of color suffer disproportionately higher pollution-related deaths
In the United States, premature death associated with exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO2) pollution — a toxic gas emitted primarily by burning fossil fuels in cars, trucks and power plants — is more likely to impact people of color compared to the white population, a new Northwestern University...
news.northwestern.edu
Some more googling suggests that only one third of NOx emissions are from mobile sources, and 60% of those are light duty diesels. So that suggests that diesel light duty vehicles lead to about 25,000 premature deaths per year in the US. Versus ~35,000/year for crashes.
But hey, the towing capacity of gasoline trucks is just not all that.
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