Warnings on Energy Saving Light Bulbs

Everyone’s aware that energy saving light bulbs save money and are good for the environment due to lower carbon dioxide emissions created to power them, so I won’t bore you with old news.  However, they might not be so good for us as they could be.

I’ll start of by saying, I’ve started to use energy efficient light bulbs in my house over the past year or two.  I wasn’t an early adopter because 5 years ago the technology just wasn’t there.  They took far too long to ‘warm up’ and emit any light.  Nowadays they are  a lot better.  I don’t really notice the difference.  I know they might not be as bright and they don’t necessarily emit the same tungsten glow but overall they’re pretty good!  As a guess I’d say that a reasonable amount of the UK population use them and as normal light bulbs are planned to be phased out by around 2011 the technology behind them is improving so they become better and better and a much more viable option.

The other month while I was on holiday, mountain biking in Morocco, there was an incident with an energy saving light bulb!  The group and I were sitting down in the Auberg (a bit like a hostel) for dinner after a hard day’s cycling, and all of a sudden- BANG - out popped the energy saving light bulb, landing red hot onto the floor close to someone’s foot, burning a little bit in the rug. Now all we did was get rid of the bulb and have dinner.  There was a bit of discussion about how close it was and it was a good thing it didn’t land in the soup!  It’s quite a worry if they have a random habit of doing this; what would happen if they hit someone - it definitely shot out of the socket.  And what would happen if it was hot enough for the carpet to set on fire? Apparently these sorts of bulbs have a habit of doing this so I decided to find out what other problems they can be attributed to.   The BBC has two good articles on their news website about a heath risk associated with them and the removal of light energy saving light bulb.  The latter article had this video attached with it, which is well worth a watch:

So it turns out that these ‘wonder’ light bulbs could be bad for us due to the small amount of mercury inside of them but there’s no warning on the packet.  I don’t mean a big “breaking energy saving bulbs could danger your health” like you see on cigarettes; but a small “if it breaks do this, and don’t do that”.  It’s not that much to expect or ask for.

Toxicologist Dr David Ray says that if you were to break one there’s not going to be a great health risk, but if a few were to break in an unventelated room it could be “If you broke five bulbs in a small unventilated room then you might be in short term danger “.  Along with this, repeat expositor  (something to worry about if you’ve got butterfingers and keep dropping bulbs) “The biggest danger is repeated exposure“.

 So what health risks are their associated with mercury poisoning?  Mercury builds up in the body; especially the brain and sufficient exposer could result in organ problems and even damage your central nervous system!  I’m not sure I fancy any exposer knowing those risks!

I continued my search and started to learn how low energy light bulbs also worsen rashes.  Many health charities warn of the painful skin reactions! Now as traditional light bulbs are planned to be phased out by 2011 this could be a worry for those with photosensitive skin.  Now I don’t know anyone with these problems, but there are around 100,000 people in the UK with these problems so it’s not just one person and their cat - it is a significant amount.  It is also rumoured that people with ME have problems with these new light bulbs.  One solution floated by some of the health charities is to allow certain people to use old fashioned light bulbs; however members of the lighting industry have said other forms will be available.

Now it’s all well and good for sufferers to be able to have old fashioned lighting in their homes, assuming this is the only solution.  But by law, employers would have to be considerate to sufferers - then what - shops, supermarkets…anyone who uses light bulbs.  Otherwise it could really put a damper on some people’s quality of living.

So with some of these warnings and health risks should we be so fast to swap over? I’ll admit - it’ll probably help us get to the government’s emissions target; but maybe a little bit more research should be done into safer, eco-friendly lighting?  For now I’m not too worried, but it if I ever get the urge to break a few light bulbs in an unventilated room I’ll make sure it’s an old Tungsten!