Hi Tom and all, I have a friend who is in charge of maintenance at a local hospital. A while back he got into a little argument with someone from what use to be DER, Department of Environmental Resources or commonly known as Don't Expect Results, about the fluorescent light tubes. Jim had a box next to the trash and the inspector started yelling that they are hazardous material Less than 20 feet away were boxes of new bulbs. Jim asked what makes these old ones hazardous while the new ones are not. He went on to say that there is no hazard warning on the box. Finally the inspector just "well they are" and walked away. To date Jim has not received an explanation why the new ones are not hazardous and the old ones are. Lenny. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tom Fowle" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Barbara" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2007 3:26 PM Subject: Re: [BlindHandyMan] WOW, FYI, News Release: Bulbs To Save Energy Are Very Dangerous To Children
You need to check with a proper source perhaps someone from EPA or the actual industry. i believe mercury has not been used in fluorescent bulbs for years and that older balasts using PCBs have been also gone for years. What he says about mercury vapor is correct, but I don't believe modern bulbs use mercury. Also true for PCBs they havn't been in the condensors in balasts for over 20 years. I will check with a qualified source and confirm this. Tom Fowle Embedded Systems Developer/ Rehab engineer Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute 2318 Fillmore St. San Francisco, CA 94115 415-345-2123 (Voice) [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Sat, Sep 29, 2007 at 09:06:30PM -0400, Barbara wrote: > Bulbs To Save Energy Are Very Dangerous To Children > > > September 30, 2007 > > Environmentally Friendly Bulbs To Save Energy Are Very Dangerous To > Children > By Thomas M. Dutkiewicz > > Forestville, CT - Why is the media acts so surprised that these new bulbs > to save energy are dangerous? To say that these bulbs are environmentally > friendly is an oxymoron. They are anything but friendly . . . they are > dangerous to the environment and to all children. > > They are florescence bulbs and all florescence bulbs contain dangerous > Mercury Vapor which is more dangerous than mercury liquid. For decades > they have been putting mercury vapor in the bulbs. That's what make them > work. > > Mercury in a liquid form can be seen and it balls up which is easier to > clean up. Mercury vapor on the other hand can not be seen nor can it be > detected by home owners. You need a special air monitoring device that > detects the presences of mercury vapor along the floor. You will not find > it in your breathing zone. > > The specific gravity of mercury vapor is heavier than air and will settle > into your rugs and stay there. So next time you break one of these bulbs > in your home, you are exposing your children to mercury vapor. So > remember this when you place your baby or children on the floor. > > You need a special absorption pellet that absorbs mercury vapor on the > floor. Then the hazmat team must vacuum it up and dispose of the pellet > as a contaminated material. You then go in with monitoring equipment to > see if there is any residual mercury left and if there is, you repeat the > process. > > Every single florescence bulb in our schools, lunch rooms, grocery stores > contain mercury vapor. The mercury vapor is dangerous to all humans > especially children. Business should not be throwing florescence bulbs > away in dumpsters which then ends up in our water systems. > > What's even more deadlier is all of the older ballasts that are running > these florescence bulbs, they contain Polychlorinated Biphenyl's or PCB's. > In business renovations these contaminated ballasts are thrown out which > contain liquid PCB's which also gets into our water system. > > Home owners now have treat these bulbs as a hazardous material as defined > by the EPA and the DOT and dispose of them properly. The cost of disposal > will over shadow the cost savings. A couple of manufactures do print this > mercury warning on the packaging but no one ever reads the packaging of a > light bulb. > > The undersign has been in the hazardous waste, remediation and > transportation business for many years. He has cleaned up mercury vapor > as well as other numerous spills of various kinds. > > > Thomas M. Dutkiewicz > P.O. Box 9775 > Forestville, CT 06011-9775 > 860-833-4127 > > > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > To listen to the show archives go to link http://acbradio.org/handyman.html or ftp://ftp.acbradio.org/acbradio-archives/handyman/ The Pod Cast address for the Blind Handy Man Show is. http://www.acbradio.org/news/xml/podcast.php?pgm=saturday Visit The Blind Handy Man Files Page To Review Contributions From Various List Members At The Following address: http://www.jaws-users.com/handyman/ Visit the archives page at the following address http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ If you would like to join the Blind Computing list, then visit the following address for more information: http://jaws-users.com/mailman/listinfo/blind-computing_jaws-users.com For a complete list of email commands pertaining to the Blind Handy Man list just send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links
