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June 3, 2007
But Those CFL Bulbs Won't Let You be Zeus!
By:
The Dude on the Right
In doing my best to save the environment I did some shopping today. One
item I bought was a simple window fan, hoping that this will finally solve the
problem of getting the cool, night air into my bedroom, thus reducing my need to
have the air conditioning on in the nighttime hours. I do worry, though,
about the neighbors across the way being able to see into the dude bedroom as I
like to walk around nude (go ahead, sister, get that image out of you head!).
Just kidding about that, I try to be as discreet as possible, so I don't see
that being a problem.
The other thing I did was buy a couple of those CFL bulbs, with the CFL not standing for the Canadian Football League, which I guess is logical because what the hell would they have to do with illuminating my office, but it stands for Compact Fluorescent Light. I suppose if they really wanted to shorten things further they could have gone with CFLB's, but then, as is the case of a lot abbreviations gone bad, (think "ATM machine," which actually breaks down to automated teller machine machine, or a "CDL license" is a commercial driver's license license) we would probably be calling them "CFLB bulbs," meaning, of course, compact fluorescent light bulb bulbs.
But as trying to be environmentally savvy as I can, herein lies the other side of the coin - disposing the expired CFL bulb properly. When the time comes, and the light bulb no longer illuminates my office, will I actually take the time to not just throw the bulb in my garbage bag and actually find a place to dispose of it properly? I hate to admit that I have probably thrown away a battery or two that aren't supposed to end up in a landfill (and don't tell me you haven't either), but this energy saving light bulbs contain a wee bit of mercury, and as opposed to us older folks who thought breaking a thermometer was the coolest thing because then you could roll the balls of mercury around, well, the younger folks are being taught that mercury is bad, toxic, and that by touching they will die. There is talk that some of the major retailers will be setting up areas to recycle the bulbs, but so far I don't think that is the case, and even then, unless you are one of those dedicated recyclers, are you really going to take your dead light bulb with you when you go to buy a new one?
But the proper disposal of these new light bulbs also made me wonder a bit about those long, fluorescent light bulbs, and how were we to properly dispose of those bulbs? For some reason I don't think pretending you were Zeus and that the bulbs were lightning bolts, and trying to launch them off of the roof into the dumpster below, was probably the correct disposal method.
I suppose I won't have to worry about disposing my CFL bulbs for a while because they also are supposed to last longer than my normal, incandescent bulb, and I won't know if I like it or not until tonight when I use it, especially since forever I've been using one of those million watt halogen lamps that makes my office brighter than standing on the sun. I guess if I can stand a little less light in my office, well, saving a couple of bucks and supposedly saving the environment is worth it, that is until I'm too lazy to recycle the damn thing and just throw it in the trash. And like those batteries, don't tell me you probably won't do the same.
That's it for this one! I'm The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!
Posted by Rightdude at June 3, 2007 5:27 PM
