Sustainable Cherry Hill: Guest Blogger: A Fresh Look at CFL Bulbs by Marc Silver

Sustainable Cherry Hill: Guest Blogger: A Fresh Look at CFL Bulbs by Marc Silver

Monday, November 17, 2008

Guest Blogger: A Fresh Look at CFL Bulbs by Marc Silver

Okay, I admit to feeling a bit guilty that there isn’t a single compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulb in our house. When I first heard about these bulbs a number of years ago, I got excited about them and was anxious to give them a try. Yes, they were more expensive than standard bulbs. But they were cleaner to manufacture and much more efficient to run—reducing energy use by 75% per bulb. They also touted long life—lasting somewhere between 4 and 10 times longer than ordinary bulbs. The combination of smaller environmental footprint and cost savings over time made the purchase decision an easy one.

 I remember rushing to the hardware store, buying one of the twisty-shaped bulbs, installing it in a table lamp in our living room, and flicking on the switch. My wife saw the strange light it produced and rendered swift judgment. “Absolutely not,” she said.

 I thought we could sacrifice a little ambience for such a worthy cause. But she was right—the light this bulb produced somehow managed to look both harsh and sickly looking to me. CFLs didn’t seem like much of a bargain if they exacted such a high aesthetic price.

 Recently I decided to take another look at CFLs, and naturally I turned to the web for research. How have CFLs changed over the years? Are they more dependable now than they were back then? Perhaps most importantly, can they come closer to matching the quality of incandescent light? I thought that others who had similar objections to the earlier versions of these bulbs might also be interested in taking a fresh look.

 Here are links to some of the more useful websites I found and a summary of the information that each offers.

 1.      The most informative site on CFLs that I found was the EnergyStar site, a joint effort of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy. http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=cfls.pr_cfls. Here you’ll find:

•  Environmental benefits of CFLs. For example: “If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified bulb, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, more than $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars.”
  
• An Interactive “Choose a Light” Guide. http://www.drmediaserver.com/CFLGuide/index.html This helpful interactive guide shows the different types of CFLs (spiral, A-shape, globe, etc.) and helps you understand which type of bulb is appropriate for which uses around the home. You can also select the type of mood you want to create, and the guide will suggest the appropriate type of CFL.
•  EnergyStar Qualified CFLs and Color. http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=cfls.pr_cfls_color A bulb’s color is measured in a unit called a kelvin. The lower the kelvin number, the warmer the light that the bulb produces. To find a bulb that approximates the same warmth as an incandescent bulb, look for a kelvin rating at or around 2700.
  
•  Frequently Asked Questions, including how to safely dispose of CFLs.http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/promotions/change_light/downloads/Fact_Sheet_Mercury.pdf Since CFLs contain a small amount of mercury (enough to cover the tip of a ballpoint pen), it’s important to dispose of them properly and not just throw them into the trash. This pdf file also tells how to safely clean a broken CFL bulb.
  
•  Comprehensive Product Finder. http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=cfls.basic_cfl_search Enter a particular manufacturer, brand, and/or bulb type, then click the “Find CFLs” button. Your search results will include important comparative specifications like bulb life, light output, color temperature, model type, and whether each bulb is Energy Star qualified.
  

 2.      Another useful resource is the web version of an article that appeared in the May, 2007 issue of Popular Mechanics. The article compares seven of the “new breed” of CFL bulbs (manufactured by N:Vision, Westinghouse, Philips, MaxLite, Sylvania and GE) to a standard Sylvania Double Life Soft White incandescent bulb.http://www.popularmechanics.com/home_journal/home_improvement/4215199.html

•  The results of the comparison were that all of the CFLs compared favorably to the Sylvania incandescent bulb. Note that the reader comments associated with this article started to give me reservations about the quality of CFLs. It seemed like anyone who ever had a problem with CFLs took the time to comment. Luckily, this next site from the Project PorchLight people helped talk me down.
  

 3.      Project PorchLight is a community-based project whose goal is to put a CFL in every home. Our own Sustainable Cherry Hill group is partnering with this group and the New Jersey Clean Energy Program to distribute more than 100,000 CFLs to area communities over the next few months. Read the article at http://www.courierpostonline.com/article/20081111/NEWS04/811140302/-1/towns01#pluckcomments

•             At http://www.projectporchlight.com/bulb/factsheet is a fact sheet from the group that includes these assuring words: “Many misperceptions about the quality of CFL bulbs are based on people's experience with the older versions of the bulbs.”
  
•         At http://www.projectporchlight.com/content/cfl-recyclers is a list of businesses that accept unbroken, worn-out CFL bulbs. In the Cherry Hill area, Home Depot is among the best choices. This link http://www6.homedepot.com/ecooptions/stage/pdf/cfl_recycle.pdf contains the Home Depot press release that announces their National CFL Bulb Recycling Initiative. 

(Note:  Cherry Hill Township Department of Public Works accepts CFL Bulbs for disposal six days a week.  Check out www.cherryhill-nj.com/government/departments/public-works/public-works.asp for more information)

   Since they were first introduced, CFLs have clearly undergone major improvements in quality, color and price, and I’m looking forward to replacing our incandescent bulbs with these smarter alternatives. The free CFL bulb being given to residents as part of Project PorchLight should convince many others to do the same. And just down the road, the LED revolution, offering even safer and better home lighting solutions, makes the future for environmentally friendly, cost effective lighting look especially bright.

Marc Silver is a SCH Board Member. He lives in Cherry Hill with his wife, Julie and their two children.

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