Say Goodbye to Fluorescents

7/28/2022

Say Goodbye to Fluorescents

Silver tooth filings are either a sign of poor dental health or street cred, but those filings have between 22% and 32% silver, mixed with tin, and zinc, with the largest component being mercury (~50%). But wait, isn’t mercury dangerous and absorbed through the skin and haven’t there been concerns about eating tuna because it contains high levels of toxic mercury? The answer is yes and the use of mercury has been regulated since 2013 and its use restricted in a variety of consumer products. Mercury batteries, once used in walkie-talkies and transistor radios, are gone due to concerns over mercury leaking into the environment and while that silver amalgam is still used in dentistry mercury is considered a highly toxic substance and has been removed from almost all consumer products except one big one, fluorescent lights.
Mercury vapor fills those endless rows of lighting tubes that are the stalwart of grocery, big box retail, and warehouse lighting, as they are between 3 and 5 times more efficient at producing light as incandescent light bulbs, and cheap hotels still have those ugly compact fluorescent bulbs in bathrooms because they lowered operating costs, but soon that will all be a thing of the past, at least in Vermont, as a new law passed this month makes it the first state to phase out the sale of linear fluorescent lighting in favor of LEDs, with Rhode Island and California to follow.
Based on an 80 page report by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, a non-profit research group that develops policy and standards on energy waste and climate change for appliances, equipment, and lighting, Vermont has decided that starting on January 1, 2024, the sale of those mercury-based fluorescent tubes will be prohibited, particularly the 4 foot types that are the most common. Earlier legislation passed in 2011 mandated that lighting manufacturers must arrange for the collection of expired/used fluorescent lamps at various sites and safely dispose of them, although we expect many never make it to such collection sites. That law contained a provision that said the bulbs should be banned completely once a superior alternative was found and various groups petitioned the Vermont Department of Conservation citing LED based tubes as an alternative.
The study provided the table below as a comparison between fluorescent and LED T8 bulbs:

[1] Lumens/watt

A full transition from fluorescent lamps to LEDs would provide large mercury and CO2 emissions reductions according to the study, which stated that by 2050 the ban would:

Reduce the amount of mercury shipped in lamps by 16,000 lbs.
Reduce Carbon Dioxide emissions by 18 million tons, which is equal to the annual emissions of 4 million typical passenger cars.
A typical school with 980 fluorescent lights would save about $3,700/year in electricity cost by switching to LEDs, which would amount to over $24,000 over the expected life of the replacements.
A full transition to LEDs would yield $44 billion in national NPV savings.

However as the EU has already eliminated all general purpose fluorescent lighting exemptions for RoHS rules, which will phase them out by next year, there are concerns that the US will become a dumping ground for fluorescents that have been eliminated or restricted in other countries unless other states join Vermont in passing such legislation or there is a federal mandate. There have been industry associations that have lobbied against the ban citing cost and availability, but it is a hard case to make when considering the toxicity of mercury and the energy savings, especially after the heat wave that much of the US has been experiencing recently.