Frequently Asked Questions on CFL Recycling

I heard that CFL bulbs contain mercury and that mercury is dangerous and bad for the environment.  Why are you encouraging me to use these bulbs?

CFL bulbs contain a small amount of mercury, which is an essential ingredient for the CFL bulbs to produce light. However, no mercury is released when the bulbs are in use and remain intact.
To put this into perspective, the amount of mercury sealed inside a CFL bulb is less than 5 milligrams, or roughly the amount that would cover the tip of a ballpoint pen. In comparison, older thermometers contain about 500 milligrams of mercury, or about the amount contained in 100 CFLs.
The environmental benefits of CFL bulbs significantly outweigh the use of comparable incandescent light bulbs because CFLs use less energy to create the same amount of light as incandescent bulbs, resulting in lower mercury and green house gas emissions. In fact, the use of CFLs, even considering the small amount of mercury contained in the bulb, results in about 35 percent lower mercury emissions when compared to the amount of energy required to power an incandescent light bulb for a similar period of time.

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What should I do when CFLs stop working or break? 

While CFLs may be accepted by some municipal landfills, they contain small amounts of mercury, which should be kept out of the waste environment. ComEd encourages customers to properly dispose of burned out or broken CFLs to prevent the release of mercury into the environment and to take advantage of local recycling options for CFL disposal:

ComEd service territory – ComEd is partnering with Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) and Ace Hardware to conduct a pilot CFL recycling program where 148 participating local Ace Hardware stores in northern Illinois will accept used  CFLs from ComEd customers through June 2008 and properly dispose of them in IEPA-approved recycling facilities.
Chicago residents – ComEd encourages its Chicago customers to visit the city’s recycling website www.bluecartschicago.org or call the city’s Household Hazardous Waste Center (1120 N. Branch St.) at 312.744.1614.
Elsewhere – Visit www.earth911.org to view other drop off locations by local Zipcode.