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Yep, its a good reason to the jump to Hg free LEDs.
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I'm all for LEDs, but I don't think they are very good candiates for drop-in light bulb retrofits due to the fact that they require good heatsinking to work properly. They are also better suited for applications where the light can be focused using optics -- that is their biggest advantage over fluorescent. For diffused light, there is not much reason to switch away from fluorescents which are still far cheaper lumen for lumen, just as efficient on the whole (but that may not be true in a few years), and presently provide better color rendering (I'm talking high quality tubes, with flicker-free electronic ballasts).
As for, we usually just store old fluorescent tubes, paint, and all the other toxic stuff we're not allowed to simply dump in a big box in the garage, that we take to the nearby toxic dump (only a couple minutes out of the way) once every couple years. It's not a major inconvenience at all.
Also, I broke a CFL once, on a hard desk and discovered that the mercury in this particular lamp (and in fact, most CFLs I've encountered) is actually stored as part of a
solid amalgam smaller about the size of a grain of sand (much less than an old dental filling) This is why these lamps often start up at partial output and take some time to "warm up" as the light has to heat up before the mecury can evaporate. Anyway, the amount of mecury amalgam than would be in dental filling, and the fact that it is in an amalgam means it should not be that dangerous anyway -- the problem is breathing mercury vapor, which won't tend to evaporate from an amalgam like it would from liquid mercury.
Fluorescent Light Bulbs Can Become 'Toxic Time Bombs' !!
Linear Mode
