One of the most oft recommended ways to reduce your energy consumption is to begin using compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs.  We have recommended this purchase both in the Greener Under Twenty and in the Green Life Project series.  

Many will bring up that the bulbs contain mercury, which is true.  However, they can be recycled at more and more places, including Home Depot stores.  And even if they don’t make it to the recycling center, which is bad, because they should go there, there is still less mercury being emitted by coal-fired power plants due each bulb replacing a less efficient incandescent bulb.

So, they’re much more efficient and can be recycled, taking away that mercury complaint, which makes this seem as if it might be a no-brainer.  Not so fast.  It’s not so simple!

Light emitting diodes (LEDs) have been touted recently as another contender for replacing our lights.  They are even more efficient than CFL bulbs, however are much more expensive than CFLs which are usually more expensive than incandescent bulbs.

Plus, Matthew Phillips sent me this story from the Times of London (‘Green’ Lightbulbs Poison Workers) last week, which highlights workers being poisoned due to working with the mercury in the bulbs in factories in China.  

This was a reminder to me that while we are making great efforts toward a more sustainable, healthier, more productive future, one with hopefully greater environmental justice for everyone, but along the way, we’re bound to make missteps.  We have to consider the costs to humans and our environment not only of the item we use itself and its disposal, or hopefully, reuse or recycle, but also that of the raw materials’ extraction and their production.  Those are places that may be less in consumers’ minds when they shop, but are extremely important to the impact of supposedly, “greener” purchases.

Here is a classic case of a product that can help us to function more efficiently, can be recycled, but which is not necessarily being produced in a way that is environmentally-safe or healthful for the workers who manufacture it.

Check it out:

A survey of published specialist literature and reports by state media shows hundreds of workers at Chinese-owned factories have been poisoned by mercury over the past decade.

In one case, Foshan city officials intervened to order medical tests on workers at the Nanhai Feiyang lighting factory after receiving a petition alleging dangerous conditions, according to a report in the Nanfang Daily newspaper. The tests found 68 out of 72 workers were so badly poisoned they required hospitalisation.

A specialist medical journal, published by the health ministry, describes another compact fluorescent lightbulb factory in Jinzhou, in central China, where 121 out of 123 employees had excessive mercury levels. One man’s level was 150 times the accepted standard.

The same journal identified a compact fluorescent lightbulb factory in Anyang, eastern China, where 35% of workers suffered mercury poisoning, and industrial discharge containing the toxin went straight into the water supply.

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