Peter and I were having a conversation the other day about compact fluorescents (CFLs). We’ve begun seeing them more and more in our travels to Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, and Haiti. Most often these days, you see them in cafes/restaurant and hotels. As prices come down and the cost savings become more widely known, we reckon they will diffuse more widely in these developing countries.

This is great. CFLs have a longer rated life and use less electricity (about 1/4 less) than incandescent bulbs. Given their potential for decreasing greenhouse gases, a shift to CFLs (or even better LEDs) is a good thing.

But then we came to the question of disposal. Hmmm. CFLs contain trace levels of mercury. Now before you freak out and banish them from your home, each bulb contains about 4 mg of mercury. Your typical watch battery contains 25mg (ref). You should also know “that coal power plants are the single largest source of mercury emissions into the environment” (ref)
so using these more energy efficient lightbulbs reduces overall mercury pollution.

But back to disposal issues. It is recommended that you bring used bulbs to a disposal/recycling facility rather than just throwing them in the regular trash. Such facilities are typically unavailable in many developing countries. As an example, here is info from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) on waste disposal in Guatemala.

Nowhere in Guatemala is there a system for the final disposal of solid waste. In the urban areas it is estimated that 47 % of the population has the benefit of solid waste collection. The rest of the people burn, bury, or toss out their trash. In rural areas only 4% of the population has the benefit of trash collection services. The waste that is collected, in both urban and rural areas, is deposited in dumps with no further treatment.

There is a question of whether the introduction of technologies that require special disposal mechanisms may end up doing more harm than good in locations where such capacity does not exist. Now I don’t want to sound like those types who would hold developing countries to a WAY higher standard than developed countries were subject to when they were first expanding. Nor would I suggest that developing countries shouldn’t get technologies until they can deal with the end of a product’s lifecycle. That would be crazy talk. But the cradle to grave thing and how it differs in different locales is important to think/talk about. I’d be really interested in hearing people’s thoughts on this one.

Useful links

What About Mercury From Compact Fluorescents? (Treehugger, June 17, 2005)
The Illumin-Naughty (Grist, Jan 16, 2003)

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