Tuesday, October 14, 2008

What to do with those CFLs?


I am making an effort to be greener. I have taken one of the easiest steps and replaced our traditional bulbs with compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs). However, because the CFLs have mercury in them, they are not supposed to go in the regular trash. I have wondered how to dispose of them (not that any has died yet - at least not a natural death!).

Today I found out about a program that Home Depot runs. You can drop of your old CFLs at any Home Depot (free of charge). They will return them to a CFL manufacturer, who will capture and reuse the mercury.

I called my local Home Depot and verified that it is indeed as easy as it sounds. What a great program!

3 comments:

T.Allen said...

Thanks for sharing this...I wondered the same thing and no ours haven't died yet either.

Andrea said...

I did break one - yikes! Found out the hard way what the cleanup should have been. But that's for another post!

Anonymous said...

That is great to know Andrea! We use these bulbs in my home and I have not even thought about how to dispose of them when they burn out. Like you, none of mine have buned out yet. We have had them all for about a year, they are terrific!