With enactment of energy and fuel efficiency legislation in December 2007, incandescent light bulbs will be phased out of the US market beginning in 2012. Incandescent lights are not energy efficient and, according to the Department of Energy, their lighting accounts for 22% of all electricity used in the US. This makes energy efficient lighting a critical – and relatively painless – way for US consumers to reduce green house gases and energy use and to fight global warming.

At present, the most popular alternative to incandescent bulbs is compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) and fluorescent bulbs. CFLs tend to be used in the home, where fluorescent bulbs are used in offices and industrial buildings and make up approximately 70% of the market. Each of the major retailers have goals and incentives as per sale of CFLs – Wal-Mart sold more than 100 million CFLs in 2007 and Home Depot gave away one million CFLs at its stores in celebration of Earth Day 2008. Each retailer is working to keep the costs of CFLs reduced so that larger numbers of consumers will purchase them.

Although CFLs have become the poster-child for how the average consumer can help stop global warming, CFLs and fluorescent bulbs present social and environmental challenges. Their toxicity requires that production factories be closely monitored to ensure that workers are not exposed to hazardous components like mercury, that consumers are informed of the mercury content in bulbs and proper cleanup in case of accidental breakage, and a special collection system is required to ensure that they do not contaminate waste streams and end up in landfills.

In order to address this critical and ever-increasing hazard, As You Sow has set the following goals:

To learn more about the dangers of fluorescent bulbs, please click on one of the following:

To learn more about our efforts in minimizing the health risks of fluorescent lighting, please click on one of the following: