# The Dangers of CFL lights



## seandelevan (Sep 24, 2006)

Oh I'm sure they will say LEDs cause cancer eventually....


----------



## honest (Dec 17, 2013)

probably, but its good to know about the mercury in the bulbs, not good for babies or pregnant women.. theres a bunch of videos on youtube about this stuff too... i think i might jus go with LEDs, will probably save money on electricity too so win, win..


----------



## ced281 (Jul 6, 2012)

I thought all fluorescent bulbs have mercury or some other heavy metal? That's why they all require special disposal methods (not supposed to just throw away a dead bulb in the trash).

If fluorescent bulbs can cause cancer, I'm sure certain LEDs can cause cancer as well. They are most likely referring to skin cancer which is also caused by the sun. Any light source that emulates the sun probably has a risk of skin cancer.


----------



## gerbillo (Dec 5, 2013)

Let's put mercury in CFLs into context:
http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/cfl.asp
http://www.livescience.com/42025-5-myths-light-bulb-ban-eisa.html

Basically, the amount of mercury in CFLs is very small, so a broken CFL is a pain in the butt to clean up, it's not a toxic waste site. But that's if the bulb is broken, and anecdotally from my friends bulbs rarely get broken.

The biggest emitter of mercury into our environment in this country are coal power plants, about 50%. Coal power is still provides the largest plurality of the electricity in the United States, so replacing an incandescent bulb with a CFL will prevent a bunch of mercury from entering our air, far more than the 4-5 mg that's contained in one CFL bulb. You'll be doing the environment and all of us a favor by saving energy, such as by switching to CFLs, or LEDs too.

I have a mixture of CFLs and LEDs at home. The LEDs are more of an experiment to see how far the technology has come, but I'm in no hurry to switch everything yet, not until prices drop further. In my 15 years I've used CFLs I've never broken one of them, and I made sure they were all properly recycled when they did their duty.


----------



## KribsDirect (Nov 15, 2013)

I keep my cell phone in my front pocket, I consume high fructose corn syrup, and I don't worry about CFL bulbs. All I'm saying is that I don't pay much attention to eco warriors or conspiracy theorists. Don't be paranoid.. they are just light bulbs.


----------



## m00se (Jan 8, 2011)

We've been using fluorescent lighting since 1930. Are you serious?


----------



## aqua hippy (Jul 19, 2011)

KribsDirect said:


> I keep my cell phone in my front pocket, I consume high fructose corn syrup, and I don't worry about CFL bulbs. All I'm saying is that I don't pay much attention to eco warriors or conspiracy theorists. Don't be paranoid.. they are just light bulbs.







your living on the edge! I keep my cell away from my "junk" lol








Sent from my RM-860_nam_usa_100 using Tapatalk


----------



## swoof (Jun 30, 2010)

KribsDirect said:


> I keep my cell phone in my front pocket, I consume high fructose corn syrup, and I don't worry about CFL bulbs. All I'm saying is that I don't pay much attention to eco warriors or conspiracy theorists. Don't be paranoid.. they are just light bulbs.


I drink a lot of Mnt. Dew


----------



## lochaber (Jan 23, 2012)

gerbillo said:


> Let's put mercury in CFLs into context:
> http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/cfl.asp
> http://www.livescience.com/42025-5-myths-light-bulb-ban-eisa.html
> 
> ...



Thanks for trying to put this into perspective. A similar bit came up recently with a coworker of mine who was pregnant, and started to buy into the whole mercury/vaccine scare. I spent about maybe 10 minutes googling and calculating to come to the conclusion that eating a can of tuna fish exposes someone to more mercury then any vaccination.

It's good to be aware of potential hazards and threats, but it's even better if you have some sort of framework to maintain perspective.

That said, I think LEDs are probably the next big transition. long life, low energy demands, high efficiency. Maybe something else will come up, but for the next decade or three, I imagine it will be hard to compete with the (increasing) long life, low energy demands, etc. of LEDs.


----------



## Greg0u812 (Dec 29, 2013)

aqua hippy said:


> your living on the edge! I keep my cell away from my "junk" lol


And all this time I thought that was what the vibrate feature was for! :confused1:


I actually have quite a few CFL bulbs in my house.
I will be changing them out to LED once the price becomes reasonable.
I have been thinking of building my own lights for several fixtures. Time just does not allow for such things at the moment.

Would be cool to have a controller for my living room at Christmas time. Have the lights fade from red to green while having friends over.


----------



## donny (Sep 17, 2015)

lochaber said:


> Thanks for trying to put this into perspective. A similar bit came up recently with a coworker of mine who was pregnant, and started to buy into the whole mercury/vaccine scare. I spent about maybe 10 minutes googling and calculating to come to the conclusion that eating a can of tuna fish exposes someone to more mercury then any vaccination.
> 
> It's good to be aware of potential hazards and threats, but it's even better if you have some sort of framework to maintain perspective.
> 
> That said, I think LEDs are probably the next big transition. long life, low energy demands, high efficiency. Maybe something else will come up, but for the next decade or three, I imagine it will be hard to compete with the (increasing) long life, low energy demands, etc. of LEDs.


Big difference between ingesting mercury, which has a higher chance of traveling through the digestive system, and getting it injected into a muscle, which has a higher chance of remaining in the body and traveling through the blood stream to the brain where it can cause major damage.

Bump: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SofTVCGZxU0


----------



## ichy (Apr 6, 2015)

Every day gives you cancer, there's no cure, there's no answer...


----------



## Plantmytank (Dec 11, 2013)

:wink2:Life in generally dangerous for you health so...


----------



## Daisy Mae (Jun 21, 2015)

Hmm. Worrying about too much stuff can shorten your life too. To each his own poison. Some more than others.


----------



## THE V (Nov 17, 2011)

In the absence of knowledge, fear reigns.


Why it scares people when the only answer is "We don't know."

Think of all the things that have been created to avoid saying that phrase.


----------



## mattinmd (Aug 16, 2014)

Several have provided some perspective, but let's take this a bit further.

Mercury content - applies to all fluorescent lights, not just CFLs, as others have stated.

UV emission - applies to all Fluorescent and many halogen lamps. Ever notice the halogen desk lamps wit the little bi-pin bulbs have a piece of glass labeled as a UV filter over them? They give off so much you need that filter.. But how many folks loose that glass and keep using the lamp?

Electrical Sensitivity & Electromagnetic Radiation. Really these are pretty much the same topic. One of these is a symptom, and the other a "cause". 

EM radiation is fancy talk for a wide variety of things including radio waves, light and xrays. *All* light bulbs give off EM radiation if they are working, because light is EM radiation. That said, the context here is probably intended to focus more on radio waves. Sorry, you get by far more low-frequency EM by being near an electric motor, and by far more high frequency by being near a cell phone. Unless you live in a cabin in the woods where there's no electrical service, and your only electricity is DC batteries powering LEDs and incandescent bulbs, you are exposed to this every day, everywhere. 

As for "dirty power"... Please, your air conditioner is by far worse about making "dirty power" than anything else you own, unless perhaps you own a pool with a large enough pump...


Don't get me started about the hazards of dihydrogen monoxide.. you might want to remove that from your tank too...


----------



## micheljq (Oct 24, 2012)

Almost but not all my lamps in the house are on LEDs now, they are cheap now. I bought many on AliXpress, many at the local hardware store when they are cheaper, and cannot complaint about them.

So when my CFLs die I replace them with LED but i use the CFLs i have before.

Michel.


----------



## mattinmd (Aug 16, 2014)

I do agree that I prefer LED bulbs over CFLs... if nothing else they have vastly longer lifespans that CFLs, and aren't as fragile..

I find that sometimes the local electrical utility runs promos with Home Depot to offer LED bulbs at deep discounts.. I got a bunch of the Phillips recessed lighting conversion kits (for 5"/6" can lights with 65 bulbs) for about $8 a pop this way recently... 90 CRI models too boot..

That said, the idea that CFLs are bombarding us with "dangerous radiation" is a bit absurd, and ignores the many more dangerous sources of the same stuff around us all the time.

Blue light hazards also apply to both LEDs and CFLs, particularly daylight spectrum varieties, but are rarely discussed because it doesn't sound as bad as "radiation".


----------



## donny (Sep 17, 2015)

There's actually a large body of research on EMF's stressing and damaging DNA among other effects. Since I've started using my Finnex Planted + light I notice a warm sensation on the side of my head where's it's located. I'm pretty sure it's not heat because it's not close enough. It could be low level inflammation or I might be sensitive. I've put it more to the back of the room and much farther away and now I get the same feeling from the back of my head except in a lesser degree. Anyway, I'm going to block it with aluminum foil.

Learn How Cell Phone Radiation and Other EMF Damages You


----------



## mattinmd (Aug 16, 2014)

The planted+ is a DC LED light.. The light itself should be giving off absolutely zero EMF other than within the visible light spectrum and infrared from heat.. 

Sorry, steady DC currents don't produce electromagnetic waves. You need a change in current flow to cause those.

LEDs put off light, not radio waves, or other EM waves... Dimmer circuits may cause LED lights to put off some low frequency radio waves in the 20-60 khz range, but the Planted+ doesn't have a dimmer.

The only part that should be giving off any non-light EMF is the power brick, and that should be the same as most other power bricks.

If you are feeling it from the fixture body of a Planted+, you are feeling heat, or imagining things..


----------



## Option (Oct 2, 2010)

Hmmm...but mercury "vaporizing into the air"??? I don't know about this. I've never heard about mercury being dangerous except as a solid heavy metal in either our water or our soil. Gaseous mercury as a health hazard now???? WTF?


----------



## mattinmd (Aug 16, 2014)

Yes, mercury vapor is a hazard, and that's not new. "Mad as a hatter" comes from hat makers being exposed to mercury vapor regularly in the making of felt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_hatter_disease

That said, the amount of mercury vapor coming from a pool of liquid metal mercury is rather low.. in fact, mercury in that form is really not very dangerous (people used to drink it). It's the water soluble forms that occur after it reacts with things that get really dangerous (methyl mercury).

However, CFLs don't contain mercury in the form of a blob of liquid metal, and the amounts they contain are tiny.. unless you're making a living out of breaking CFLs every day, you're not going to get poisoned by this exposure. You probably get several times more mercury exposure from your tap water and food than you would be exposed to from breaking 1 CFL per year. Avoid breaking CFL's, but they're not mercury bombs that turn a house into a toxic waste dump.

Remember folks, doses are important in poisons.. Everything is a poison at some level. Even drinking large amounts of water without food can kill you dead (electrolyte imbalance ensues), but you need it to live. See the dihydrogen monixide bit.


----------



## Argus (May 22, 2013)

Option said:


> Hmmm...but mercury "vaporizing into the air"??? I don't know about this. I've never heard about mercury being dangerous except as a solid heavy metal in either our water or our soil. Gaseous mercury as a health hazard now???? WTF?


Mercury vapor is dangerous. The hazards have been known since at least 1860 when a paper was written about mercury poisoning in the hatter trade. _Mad as a hatter_ was about the psychological symptoms of mercury poisoning. 

All fluorescent light bulbs contain mercury vapor. This vapor is not released unless the bulb is broken. Electricity excites the mercury vapor. The excited mercury atoms produce short-wave ultraviolet light that causes a phosphor to fluoresce, producing visible light. 

Mercury Poisoning Symptoms, Causes, Treatment - What about mercury in fish? - MedicineNet

Some UV light escapes fluorescent light bulbs and will cause watercolor paintings and color photographs to fade if exposed for long periods of time. Rosewood will fade with UV exposure, but cherry will take on a rich dark color. 

Yes, too much UV can cause cancer. I have to see a dermatologist regularly and wear sunscreen whenever I go out. I'm paying for my sins of too much sailing in S. California when I was a teenager. 

Most of my house has been converted to daylight LEDs. I've found LE 10W A19 E27 LED light bulbs to be inexpensive and quite good. Daylight bulbs take a bit of getting used to if you have been living with the candlelight color of tungsten or CFL warm white. However, I find I much prefer it, especially when trying to read an API test result. 
:grin2:


----------



## Kubla (Jan 5, 2014)

Of course if you go to the EPA website they still have a 4 page download about what to do if you break a cfl in your home. They remove the part last year about putting it in a clearly labeled jar and taking it to hazarous waste disposal. It still starts off with evacuating the room, turning of the AC/heater and opening windows.....


----------



## GraphicGr8s (Apr 4, 2011)

mattinmd said:


> Sorry, steady DC currents don't produce electromagnetic waves. You need a change in current flow to cause those.


It does have a magnetic field to it though. And it can produce interference. Make a DC electromagnet and put it near a CRT. It will interfere with the image.



mattinmd said:


> Don't get me started about the hazards of dihydrogen monoxide.. you might want to remove that from your tank too...


At last someone else that understands the dire consequences of DHM. Sometimes I feel so like the one in the wilderness if you get the Bible reference.

I love when they say life is short. It's the longest thing YOU will ever do. 
And the leading cause of death? Birth. It's all a downhill ride down a slippery slope..

Bump:


Kubla said:


> Of course if you go to the EPA website they still have a 4 page download about what to do if you break a cfl in your home. They remove the part last year about putting it in a clearly labeled jar and taking it to hazarous waste disposal. It still starts off with evacuating the room, turning of the AC/heater and opening windows.....


They took out the part where you don a hazmat, dance on your left foot chanting "Owa TaGoo Siam"?


----------



## mattinmd (Aug 16, 2014)

GraphicGr8s said:


> It does have a magnetic field to it though. And it can produce interference. Make a DC electromagnet and put it near a CRT. It will interfere with the image.


True, but static magnetic fields pose no hazard at all to human health.. if they did, we'd be doomed since the earth has us always within its static magnetic field (and that field protects us from cosmic rays, so that's a good thing). We'd also have a lot fewer notes stuck to our fridges...


----------



## Hoppy (Dec 24, 2005)

donny said:


> There's actually a large body of research on EMF's stressing and damaging DNA among other effects. Since I've started using my Finnex Planted + light I notice a warm sensation on the side of my head where's it's located. I'm pretty sure it's not heat because it's not close enough. It could be low level inflammation or I might be sensitive. I've put it more to the back of the room and much farther away and now I get the same feeling from the back of my head except in a lesser degree. Anyway, I'm going to block it with aluminum foil.
> 
> Learn How Cell Phone Radiation and Other EMF Damages You


I regularly wear an aluminum foil hat to keep the flying saucer aliens from taking over my brain, which would allow them to rule the world.>


----------



## Steve001 (Feb 26, 2011)

mattinmd said:


> Don't get me started about the hazards of dihydrogen monoxide.. you might want to remove that from your tank too...


Bad stuff. Too much causes intoxication. The pure stuff is poisonous. This stuff should be strictly regulated, maybe even banned. I won't get near it.


----------



## Daisy Mae (Jun 21, 2015)

Steve001 said:


> Bad stuff. Too much causes intoxication. The pure stuff is poisonous. This stuff should be strictly regulated, maybe even banned. I won't get near it.


I couldn't stop laughing. Are you sure your name isn't Elphaba?


----------



## g4search (Aug 10, 2014)

donny said:


> Big difference between ingesting mercury, which has a higher chance of traveling through the digestive system, and getting it injected into a muscle, which has a higher chance of remaining in the body and traveling through the blood stream to the brain where it can cause major damage.
> 
> Bump: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SofTVCGZxU0




donny,

do you know how much mercury you have been exposed to?


----------



## GraphicGr8s (Apr 4, 2011)

Steve001 said:


> Bad stuff. Too much causes intoxication. The pure stuff is poisonous. This stuff should be strictly regulated, maybe even banned. I won't get near it.


People don't realize how many deaths are caused by DHMO. I've written countless letters to the powers that be to no avail.


----------



## ichy (Apr 6, 2015)

Steve001 said:


> Bad stuff. Too much causes intoxication. The pure stuff is poisonous. This stuff should be strictly regulated, maybe even banned. I won't get near it.


nasty stuff! corrodes metals like no one's business too!


----------



## Argus (May 22, 2013)

Hoppy said:


> I regularly wear an aluminum foil hat to keep the flying saucer aliens from taking over my brain, which would allow them to rule the world.>


Ah, so your brain is the key to ruling the world. Good to know. I'll report that back to my home planet.


----------



## Steve001 (Feb 26, 2011)

ichy said:


> nasty stuff! corrodes metals like no one's business too!


That's right. That reminds me, it is known as a universal solvent too. Like I said, bad stuff indeed.


----------



## Steve001 (Feb 26, 2011)

Daisy Mae said:


> I couldn't stop laughing. Are you sure your name isn't Elphaba?


 No, but she's my 2nd cous twice removed. Just between you and me she's great fun at parties. Family get togethers not so much. There it's like "Housewives of New York City" I do have some of the family traits. For example, don't get me talking about using salt in a planted tank.


----------



## essabee (Oct 7, 2006)

I am indestructible. I am indestructible. I am indestructible. I am indestructible. I am indestructible. I am indestructible. I am indestructible. I am indestructible. I am indestructible. I am indestructible. I am indestructible. I am indestructible. I am indestructible. I am indestructible. I am indestructible. I am indestructible.

Sorry I was chanting the "mantra" of the modern human race.


----------



## Argus (May 22, 2013)

essabee said:


> I am indestructible. I am indestructible. I am indestructible. I am indestructible. I am indestructible. I am indestructible. I am indestructible. I am indestructible. I am indestructible. I am indestructible. I am indestructible. I am indestructible. I am indestructible. I am indestructible. I am indestructible. I am indestructible.
> 
> Sorry I was chanting the "mantra" of the modern human race.


Winston Churchill said, "Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing...after they have exhausted all other possibilities."

I think he had the scope wrong. I believe it applies to just about everyone, and the problem is that we don't always exhaust all other possibilities quickly enough to avoid serious damage.


----------



## Mr. Limpet (Dec 26, 2010)

Wait - you mean I'm NOT supposed to eat florescent bulbs? Now they tell me.


----------

