Canada Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Jen&Joe06
I am asking you this question because you are very environmentally concientious, and I am sorry its such a stupid question.
We are looking at switching the light bulbs in our house. We had thought about using the CFL bulbs, but they have some dangerous stuff in them (or at least the ones we were looking at do.) So, I am wondering if it is better to use bulbs with mercury in them, but use less power, or is it better to use bulbs that are chemically safer, but use more power?
Told you it would be a stupid question, but I am very interested in your take on it...and anyone else who wants to give their opinion too!
Re: Jen&Joe06
This is NOT a stupid question at all. The market is so flooded with products and processes that label themselves as "green" or "eco-friendly" that it is really hard to know what is the better product to purchase.
To really answer your question you would have to do a full life cycle analysis. If I had a hot tub time machine I could go back 5 years when I actually had access to one that I helped develop!
I think you have to look at all the envionmental impacts of both
CFL's - mercury inside bulb, raw materials/emissions/waste from production, transportation, energy consumption/emissions from use, waste/emissions from disposal.
Traditonal bulbs - raw materials/emissions/waste from production, transportation, energy consumption/emissions from use, waste/emissons from disposal.
Yes CFL's have a trave amount of mercury in them. The environmental impact of this is determined by how the end user dispose of the bulbs when they burn out. But one thing that probably you haven't considered is that there are mercury (and other toxic) emissions from the production of electricity. So by using a bulb that requires more energy you are actually increasing the amount of mercury emissions vs a CFL bulb. Here is a good source for the info on that
With traditional bulbs you are going to have to use many more bulbs vs the average lifespan of a CFL bulb. So you have additional raw materials/emissions/waste from production, transportation and then waste/emissions from disposal.
The type of energy you have in your home will reduce the impact of both choices (nuclear, coal and hydroelectric having a higher impact than solar or wind (say through Bullfrog Power)).
IMO the environmental impact of using traditional bulbs where you would have to use more of them would be worse than the impact of the mercury in CFL's (assuming you dispose of them properly).