CFL Product Destruction 101: Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs) Can Ruin You

Why did I hire a product destruction service to recycle my CFL bulbs? Ever see a $25,000.00 light bulb? I have. They don’t look that different from any other bulb in any light fixture in your business, but a few of them unthinkingly tossed into the trash can put a major dent in your bottom line. We’re talking CFLs – and mercury. CFLs are classified as universal waste by the EPA, so you can’t just toss them in the trash and forget about them or use something similar to fluorescent light bulb recycling. And they have additional (read: even more maddeningly complicated) regulations in many states. Now, you can try to keep up with these complex and changing laws, you can try to comply with all of the regulations about storage, proper containers, labeling, length of time since removal, open box flaps, transportation, disposal, and cleanup of broken CFL bulbs. But creating a program to train staff to follow these rules, enforcing them, and learning the different rules in different states can be an expensive administrative nightmare, plus your costs aren’t fixed, and the fines for illegal CFL dumping are steep: 25 grand per mistake. And don’t go thinking (like I did) that you can just get the low-mercury bulbs with the little green marker on the end and you’re safe: the law says that unless you test the bulbs yourself and prove they’re low-mercury, you have to treat them all the same, as universal waste on a par with industrial batteries and toxic pesticides. I don’t know how I’m supposed to test a light bulb to determine how many milligrams of mercury it contains, and I don’t want to know. Forget it. I hired a product destruction service and recycler. They charge a fixed fee, so my costs are predictable and budgeted in advance, and the liability ends at my door. Then I went back to running my business, which is already exasperating enough without giving up my hard-earned profits over a burnt-out light bulb. **This is a fictional account of the challenges and solutions business owners face when disposing used CFL bulbs. The statistics and facts are all true, only the business owner is fictional.