Home Depot has started a nationwide compact flourescent light bulb recycling program. “At each The Home Depot store, customers can simply bring in any expired, unbroken CFL bulbs, and give them to the store associate behind the returns desk.” CFL bulbs contain mercury and can be damaging to the environment if thrown into regular landfills. [New York Times]
More From Consumerist
-
Home Depot Leaves Me With A Concrete Condo Floor And An Awful Lot Of Supplies
-
Leatherman Can’t Repair Tool Under 25-Year Warranty, Replaces It Instead
-
GE Wants To Spend $836 For Repairs On My $500 Washer That Does The Harlem Shake
-
FedEx Driver Knows I'm Home During The Day, Tries To Turn Me Into Human Drop Box
-
Doritos Locos Tacos Are Apparently The Most Successful Thing Ever
@friendlynerd: Maybe IKEA is only doing it on a store-by-store basis? I know mine has been doing it for at least two years, as well as taking batteries, and plastic bags. At our local IKEA, the recycling bins are located near the main entrance.
IKEA is a also a cheap source for buying new CFCs, as well as NiMh batteries.
note: here’s a trick, if you didn’t bring a re-usable bag with you to IKEA, avoid the the 5 cent per bag charge (and help the planet) by grabbing a couple from the bag recycling bin!
@Darklighter: Okay thank you for clarifying that. I wasn’t quite sure if you were impossible, but now I know. I said keep an open mind, because one cannot become enlightened with a closed mind. So you don’t have time, sounds like the typical American who doesn’t want to be bothered with the facts, just rather be spoon fed propaganda by the media.
@friendlynerd:
One thing I’ve noticed at many Ikeas is that they have a ton of BROKEN CFLs in them, due to morons throwing them in and or overloading the bin.
Since the Hg vaporizes..that right there is a huge no no!
@u1itn0w2day: But you don’t have to do like the pc soccer mom and call in a hazmat team to clean up 1 broken bulb.I heard don’t vacum but sweep it up and put the debris in a seperate bag before it goes in the regular trash.If you do vacum you are supposed to throw the vacum bag away right away as well.
Never vacuum it up. Get a few strips of duct tape and pick it up that way.
@Bladefist: That damn sun is causing all this trouble again?
Actually, I’ve heard more in favor of the solar notion than the carbon theory. It’s also way out of hand with the reactions people are having to what amounts to junk science. I mean, without the greenhouse effect
To me, the biggest part is that man is so small, so insignificant that it’s nothing but vanity to think we are affecting God’s creation. Even if we are affecting it in some way, Algore even says it’s just 1C. Of course do him that means dead polar bears and a bunch of other things while I believe it means a slightly warmer day.
I had professors at college who would tell us the science doesn’t add up since Carbon really doesn’t add all that much.
It’s kind of like DDT. All these years later scientists are proving that Rachael Carson et. all were wrong but the consensus doesn’t want to give it up.
Good luck with the CFLs. The best thing to do as a CONSUMER is to test them out and see if you like them or not and then decide if you want to keep them or not. Some people don’t like the light on them which is understandable and I’m not really big on them for reading (I still have a 40W in my bedside lamp for reading)
If not, time to stock up on the old types. Congress was trying to ban the 100W a while ago in some ridiculous move.
I hope in a couple years, when the first round of bulbs are dieing out, that there are commercials promoting the proper recycling of these bulbs, so consumers are aware these cannot be thrown away.
@Bladefist: “@Darklighter: Wrong.”
Oh, then you win.
@Bladefist: Your local electric utility might very well start a similar CFL recycling program. I believe Touchstone Energy (the large electric cooperative) is working with its local affiliates to do the same thing.
[www.banderaelectric.com]
But don’t take away my traditional light bulb. Sure it makes heat but I like its warmth in winter, I just change them to CFL in summer. I would like LED light bulbs over CFL’s. Seems more green to me.
I was excited by this, as I had several CFLs sitting here that I needed a way to recycle. I brought them into Home Depot tonight and nobody there knew about this program, not even the store manager. The associate I talked to didn’t even know what a CFL was until I explained it.
I was about to leave and I saw they had a recycling center near the returns desk for batteries and a bucket next to that labeled “Light Bulbs” that was full of fluorescent bulbs, but they wouldn’t let me put mine in there. The associate said it was for burnt-out bulbs that were returned and were going to be recycled.
“Exactly,” I said. “This is a burnt-out bulb and I want to have it recycled.”
“No,” she said. “This is for light bulbs that people returned because they didn’t work, and we return them in the system.”
“You just said burnt-out bulbs for recycling, that’s what I want. Home Depot just launched this program!”
I ended up leaving without recycling them, but I called Jean Niemi, Sr. Manager of Corporate Communications (her name was on the press release), and let her know. They shouldn’t be releasing this stuff all over the Internet before the stores know about it.