Why did I hire a CFL recycler/disposer service? Ever see a $25,000.00 light bulb? I have. They don’t look that different from any other bulb in any light fixture in your business, but a few of them unthinkingly tossed into the trash can put a major dent in your bottom line. We’re talking CFLs – and mercury.
CFLs are classified as hazardous waste by the EPA1, so you can’t just toss them in the trash and forget about them. And they have additional (read: even more maddeningly complicated) regulations in many states2. Now, you can try to keep up with these complex and changing laws, you can try to comply with all of the regulations about storage, proper containers, labeling, length of time since removal, open box flaps, transportation, disposal, and cleanup of broken bulbs3. But creating a program to train staff to follow these rules, enforcing them, and learning the different rules in different states can be an expensive administrative nightmare, plus your costs aren’t fixed, and the fines are steep: twenty-five grand per mistake4.
And don’t go thinking (like I did) that you can just get the low-mercury bulbs with the little green marker on the end and you’re safe: the law says that unless you test the bulbs yourself and prove they’re low-mercury, you have to treat them all the same1, as hazardous waste on a par with industrial batteries and toxic pesticides5. I don’t know how I’m supposed to test a light bulb to determine how many milligrams of mercury it contains, and I don’t want to know.
Forget it. I hired a recycler/disposer. They charge a fixed fee, so my costs are predictable and budgeted in advance, and the liability ends at my door. Then I went back to running my business, which is already exasperating enough without giving up my hard-earned profits over a burnt-out light bulb.
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