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!!!