CFL bulb with safety skin keeps mercury inside

(Credit: ClearLite)

Florida-based lighting company ClearLite is introducing a new CFL bulb with an unbreakable safety shell that prevents mercury from escaping, a feature that addresses some health concerns with CFLs.

The SX-4000 silicone skin remains intact even if the ArmorLite bulb inside shatters, according to ClearLite, which is rolling out its bulb in December and January.

Not everyone is aware of the danger of broken CFLs. Because of the small amount of mercury in them, current EPA guidelines call for evacuating people and pets from the area where a bulb has shattered.

(Credit: ClearLite)

They also call for the room to be aired out for 15 minutes and the air conditioning to be shut off.

The 9-watt (40-watt equivalent) and 14-watt (60-watt equivalent) ArmorLite bulbs look somewhat like incandescents and can be used for 10,000 hours, according to ClearLite. They contain amalgam, an alloy of mercury, in solid form.

CFLs can usually be recycled at retailers or municipal hazardous waste programs, though the silicone skin in ArmorLite bulbs will require extra steps or a special program to process.

The 800-lumen bulbs are Energy Star-rated and will be available in "natural soft white" and "natural brite white" varieties, with a suggested retail price of $7.99.

The silicone skin may have some effect on the perceived color of the light. There's limited color temperature information on this page, and a bit more information about ClearLite bulbs in this video.

ClearLite plans to produce other varieties of ArmorLite bulbs such as a bathroom-use vanity globe. Samples of the A-shape bulb are already available.

[Splashes]

Lipstick on a pig.

CFLs are for tree-huggers who value good intentions more than reality itself.

[AppleSuxLeo]

Exactly...Liberals trying to push their agenda on us.

[ikramerica--2008]

Those wattage numbers are a joke. I replaced CFLs that were in my place with incandescents because the CFLs were so dim. The 100 watt equivalent floods were WAY dimmer than the 65w real bulbs I put in to replace them (not to mention casting a greenish light that made everything look crappy). You'd need more like a 200 watt equivalent CFL, which would hardly save any electricity over a standard 65 watt flood. It's all a scam, being forced on us by building code boards (non-elected) around the nation, with the cooperation of the EPA (non-elected).

[zyxxy]

If you buy cheap CFLs, you get cheap light. If you spend a little extra money, you get good quality light. I agree that this causes issues, because nobody is tracking what the good and bad ones are. If you look at the package, its says clearly what the output is in Lumens, and a true 75 watt incandescent needs a 23 watt CFL to replace it.

I have some warm white CFL R30s mixed in a room with 75 watt Halogens, and once the CFLs hit their warm up temperature, you cannot tell the difference. They are very good. That said, in a craft area, I have installed 'daylight' CFLs because the color rendition is much better than warm white or incandescent, even Halogen. It comes very close to matching natural daylight. You can find several good brands, but expect to pay at least $7 per bulb. If you are paying less than that, you are buying junk bulbs, and should not expect good quality light.

Another energy saving route is the new IR coated high efficiency Halogens. I just installed one as a test. A 48 watt puts out the same light as a traditional 75 watt Halogen. The problem is they cost as much as a good quality CFL, I paid $10 for one bulb, they don't last as long as a good CFL, and they use about twice as much energy, 48 vs 23 watts. The up side is that they are dimmable and they turn on instantly. They also work in the cold. The warm up time for CFL in cold weather is a drag.

My biggest peeve on CFLs is that the dimmable models are a joke. If you need dimming, go with Halogen.

Also, LED lighting is currently a joke. The Lumens output is pitiful and the color rendition (CRI) is laughable. Much worse than good quality CFL.

[ejhayes76]

I am a liberal and a tree-hugger and I hate CFLs.

[Alberto Enriquez]

You're kidding right? Insults are not a substitute for reason. I've replaced nearly every bulb in my house with these CFLs and there's been a noticeable drop in my electric bill.

These bulbs come in different "temperatures" now, with whites ranging from bluish to pinkish to yellowish. So color rendition is no longer a problem. Take your pick. Shop at a place like Lowe's or Home Depot and you're free to exchange them for the one that's right for a particular room's color scheme.

CFLs are far safer than the super-hot halogens that have burnt down many a house??and should never have been approved. I believe Canada resisted the industry pressure to sell those bulbs of mass destruction. Halogens can set a drape ablaze instantly upon contact.

CFLs also much cooler than incandescents. No child will ever burn a hand on one. They provide good light, at a fraction of the cost, and because they last for YEARS, there's less ladder-climbing to replace ceiling or porch lights. The latest models still take a moment to get to full radiance, but then they easily compete with the "65W flood".

Down the road, we'll soon have LED house lighting which will make even CFLs look about as efficient as gas-hog Caddys. As for being a tree-hugger, if you "support our troops," you support energy efficiency. It's possible within the next 10 years to get entirely OFF oil with current alternatives and end our huge and unnatural subsidy to Middle Eastern oil producers. It's not "cheap" to be resource wise and think about whom your habits support. Change is always difficult for some, but conservation can do more than Predator drones to cut off terrorism at the source. That's one reason Australia recently OUTLAWED the incandescent bulb.

[DarkHawke]

Yes it IS possible to get off of foreign oil in 10 years, but if you think things like these types of bulbs and "alternative" energy sources are going to get the job done, think again. Well, assuming you want a current or better standard of living. Most third-world nations don't have a foreign energy importation problem, but you probably wouldn't want to live there. That's what schemes like wind and solar power and "cap and trade" (read: cap and tax your bee-hind off) will do to this country. If full exploitation of ALL domestic energy sources were allowed (coal, nuclear, off-shore oil reserves), you betcha we could tell OPEC where to go...and we'd STILL have to be involved in the mid-East for a whole host of reasons, beginning with, y'know, foreign terrorist strikes on the homeland? Remember that one? Yeah, kind of a biggie, that.

[gerrrg]

Aren't Ikea's CFLs that are enclosed, covered with some sort of silicone skin? I was playing around with one once, peeling the skin off...not sure if it was meant to protect the bulb from leaking when broken.

[niteside1]

Hah, I was thinking the same thing when I was reading this article and I've had some of those Ikea bulbs for years.

[HeavyJim]

This is really nothing new, there have been bulbs with a coating like this for the food industry for years. Used to use them in my shop as rough service bulbs too. Switched to fluorescent lights because they are cool to the touch.

[DarkHawke]

Well, yippie. So now if the INNER bulb breaks, it gets caught by this whiz-bang-nifty coating. And if the whole damn shootin' match breaks, like if it gets dropped or stepped on? Is this wondrous silicone layer okay then?

[zyxxy]

If you are using enclosed CFLs (R30, R38, or 'A' style enclosed) then the silicone covering is not that big a deal. I have yet to break a single CFL, but I only run bare CFL "twisties" inside enclosed fixtures. All my bare bulbs are either R30 or 'A' style bulbs, so they are self enclosed.

[PhoenixFiresky]

It's a good idea to add protection. I read about one woman who had an unprotected bulb break and the mercury escaped - it took $5000 and a hazmat team to decontaminate her home. Considering the number of bulbs that probably break in U.S. households annually, I've never understood how the government could have thought that requiring the use of these things would be a good idea. It's just not practical. On the other hand, that kind of mandate obviously spawns innovation, which is a good thing.

[saychzz]

i am a little puzzled by their product. they say that they use amalgam instead of liquid mercury. if that is the case than why do they need to promote the "safety" coating unless it is just another marketing ploy to use shop lights. with the amalgam there is no risk of mercury contamination if the bulb should break because all the mercury is contained inside the pellet of amalgam.

[saychzz]

i am a little puzzled by their product. they say that they use amalgam instead of liquid mercury. if that is the case than why do they need to promote the "safety" coating unless it is just another marketing ploy to use shop lights. with the amalgam there is no risk of mercury contamination if the bulb should break because all the mercury is contained inside the pellet of amalgam.

[theparisapartment]

It takes so much more energy to create these bulbs and dispose of them that it has to cancel out the couple amount saved on your energy bill. Most DO have Mercury which is fueling our Global need for it once the countries all synch up and ban the incandescent if we allow such a travesty.
The disposal is ludicrous as we only recycle 1% of what can be now, what are the chances of entire countries disposing them with plastic bags, duct tape, glass jar and gloves? Why should we have to when that in itself creates waste exponentially. This particular company says their recycling is even more involved than just getting them to the local Hazardous Waste site:

'CFLs can usually be recycled at retailers or municipal hazardous waste programs, though the silicone skin in ArmorLite bulbs will require extra steps or a special program to process.'

An incandescent can tossed in the trash. And does not risk poisoning the water with mercury if something it broke on gets washed. Or require so much energy to make that Ohio factories have to close while GE moves jobs to China. When was the last time you had to change an incandescent bulb anyway?

[wholesalebulbs]

This product is a waste of money. The whole scare about mercury in CFL's is completely overblown. If people wish to focus on the facts then they would be more worried about eating Tuna then about CFL bulbs exploding around them.

Please see the VERY informative article written below on this subject:

By Robert Clear, Francis Rubinstein & Jack Howells
Illuminating Engineering Society, August 2009



Lighting professionals are presumably aware that used CFLs are supposed to be recycled, and not just sent to landfills, because of the small amount of toxic mercury they contain. But what do you advise your clients when they break a lamp? And just how dangerous is the mercury inside?



You may have heard that clean-up costs are exorbitant and that the mercury vapor concentration from a broken lamp is unsafe. Actually, the amount of mercury that you are likely exposed to after breaking a lamp is no more than you subject yourself to when eating a bite of tuna. In this paper, we review the concerns, describe why we believe that the fish comparison is valid and show that the real risk is negligible.




A QUESTION OF EXPOSURE



Those of us who remember mercury thermometers, which contained 100 or more times the amount of mercury in a CFL, may well wonder how we ever survived. In fact, the use of the state air quality standard to determine the acceptable level for a one-time or infrequent exposure is extremely conservative. The state standard is based on an estimate of the No Observable Adverse Effects Level (NOAEL) for continuous (life-time) exposure. The MDEP justifies using this ambient air quality (AAQ) standard for a single exposure because of a lack of information on the effects of prenatal exposure: "An important issue for which there are no data is the relative importance of a short spike in exposure versus a longer-term lower exposure in producing toxicity. The U.S. EPA considers that a single exposure may be sufficient to produce effects in a developing organism because of the recognition of potential critical windows of vulnerability." Based on this logic, a short spike in exposure could be as short as a single breath. MDEP, without any discussion of the issue, confines its analysis to situations where the average level exceeds the AAQ for one hour.



The problem with applying this principle to air concentrations is that exposure is not directly proportional to the current air concentration. Human beings are continually exposed to mercury - from inorganic mercury salts in food and water, elemental mercury in air (from natural and anthropogenic sources), and organic mercury, such as methylmercury, in fish. Mercury becomes bound within tissues in the body, and is only gradually released over time. Prenatal exposure actually results from the combination of mercury from the environment and any mercury remaining in the bloodstream from a history of exposure.



While the various forms of mercury appear to have similar mechanisms of toxicity, methylmercury is the most dangerous for the prenatal or young infant; it readily crosses the placental and blood-brain barriers and is much more likely to be bound to the developing brain.[4-6] Comparing the mercury dose from a meal of fish, or even a past history of eating fish, to the dose from a broken CFL therefore becomes a useful, while conservative, exercise in understanding the real danger posed by CFLs.



For those following an "average" diet, fish is one of the most common sources of mercury that we are exposed to in everyday life. The amount of methylmercury that accumulates in fish varies according to how high the fish is on the food chain (Figure 1, right) [4]. The FDA encourages people, including pregnant women, to eat fish, but recommends that they eat no more than one 6-ounce meal per week of fish such as Albacore tuna, which is relatively high in mercury content. Albacore tuna is one of the most commonly consumed fish.

So if you are still concerned about what might happen if you break a CFL. just follow the steps below.


1. Ventilate the area where the lamp is broken with outside air.
2. Promptly clean up and remove any visible debris to a ventilated (preferably outdoor) area.

If you have already broken the lamp and vacuumed it up and are worried, DON'T BE! You have been exposed to about as much mercury as you would get from eating the FDA recommended amount of fish per week.

So get out there and purchase CFL's for your entire home because you will be doing a great service for your own expenses and the environment. There are great sites on the internet for purchasing cheap CFL bulbs. A great article on this topic can be found on the Wholesalebulb website at the below link:

http://www.wholesalebulbs.net/blog/?p=42