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Cville CFLs Campaign
What if every time you flipped on a light switch, a mountain blew up in Virginia? The modern hunger for electricity has greatly exceeded our supply of fossil fuel—energy produced from burning petroleum, natural gas and coal. Most everyone has heard that news by now, but not everyone has changed their behavior to accommodate it. Would you change your habits if you knew that one of the greatest aids for reducing personal energy consumption could be gotten for free?
Addressing Environmental Justice
Meet the compact fluorescent lightbulb, or CFL for short. It uses approximately 20% of the energy of the standard, 4-for-$2.00 incandescent and lasts anywhere from 3 to 10 years. Swapping out 1 100-watt bulb for its 23-watt CFL equivalent can save you anywhere from $55 to $81 over the life of the bulb. Swap out all the lights in your home, and watch your electricity bill drop immediately. With so much going for it, you'd think the CFL would be more popular than The Beatles.
Unfortunately, most people just don't see the CFL. It's got a pricey sticker even when sitting on the lowest shelf in CVS or Kroger, buried by its pear-shaped cousins. The biggest barrier to a mass swapping-out of these bulbs is the upfront cost. The average family of four in Charlottesville barely makes ends meet and a $4.00-8.00 lightbulb will lose everytime to diapers, bread, milk, cereal, meat and other necessities in the shopping cart.
That's where Cville CFLs comes in. The City signed the Mayoral Climate Protection Act, a document which has clearly outlined goals for reducing our area's energy footprint. To meet these goals will take everyone doing their part. Therefore the City is teaming up with a few organizations, and anyone else who wants to donate time, resources or bulbs, to collect new CFLs and redistribute them through a network of social justice groups to lower-income households. If your group, business, or home would like to take the pledge to swap out your CFLs, we would like to get them to you. Here are the steps:
- Sign a pledge to use and/or redistribute 50 free CFLs to deserving homes,
- Install them and lower electric bills around the area,
- Reduce our region's overall energy footprint and improve air quality.
How to Dispose of a CFL
CFLs can be recycled at the McIntire Recycling Center on McIntire Road next to the County Office Building. Their hours of operation are
Mon.-Fri.—7:30 am to 5:20 pm
Sat.—8:00 am to 5:20 pm
Sun.—12:30 pm to 5:20 p.m.
CFLs do contain mercury, so they are considered "hazardous waste" and you will want to be careful in handling a broken one, but there's no need to panic. Most bulbs are damaged when they're cold, and the mercury is likely to adhere to the bulb's debris. Just follow these instructions:
- To be safe, ventilate the area.
- Use rubber or latex gloves—the kitchen variety should be fine—to carefully gather up the ballast and broken glass with disposable paper towels.
- Wipe the floor carefully with more paper toweling.
- Double bag everything in Ziploc bags.
- Dispose as hazardous waste.
As a point of interest, CFLs can actually reduce the amount of mercury released each year into the environment. Half of the power in the United States is generated by coal-fired plants. Burning coal releases mercury into the atmosphere -- about 10 milligrams over the life of an average incandescent bulb. Because of its superior efficiency, a CFL will only be responsible for about 2.5 milligrams. Even if you add the 4 milligrams contained in the typical CFL (which is fully recoverable by recycling), a CFL is actually responsible for putting less mercury into the environment than its incandescent equivalent.
To find out how you can participate in the Cville CFL campaign as either an organizer, donor, distributor, or recipient, stop by the CCOES booth at the Earth Week Eco-Fair or contact the City of Charlottesville's environmental office.
