Just smashed energy saving lightbulb..man on TV this am said evacuate room if this happens..why?

[eltham]

Any ideas why the advice is to evacuate the room if you smash an energy-saving lightbulb..it's out bedroom one so it won't stay evacuated for long? Typical TV report..:

Interviewer - ..and is it true you have to evacuate the room if you smash an energy-saving lightbulb?

Expert: yes that's right

End of interview

Why? why? Why?

Jstrick - why are you searching for old lightbulb threads to scaremonger? This is the 3rd thread I've seen, this one is over 4 years old.

zooommmmbbbiiieeeee thread

We're changing over to LEDs - I'd be interested to hear what others are doing. We don't want dimmable LEDs, so can manage the cost.

Honestly not trying to scare monger. My kid knocked a lamp over with one of them in it. Picked up a piece, than in our stupidity we vacuumed. I can't seem to find anyone talking about this that's current. I'm just trying to put the information I've found out about these stupid things so more people will know that it seems like the toxicity of these is being played down and what they have to look for if they cleaned up wrong as I did. If you'd read the link I posted you would see that I am not "scare mongering" but giving good information that it seems people don't know.

The link is to a blog.

Got any more reliable sources?

OSHA limits for adults in the workplace. www.osha.gov/SLTC/mercury/exposure_limits.html

The maine cfl study is where I found all the information about levels in air and on flooring, etc that a cfl broke on. www.maine.gov/dep/homeowner/cflreport.html

Sorry if this double posts it didnt look like it posted the first time

The SCHER.

"Conclusions regarding health risks for children cannot be made due to absence of exposure estimations"

Also from the SCHER

"However, the measured indoor air concentrations may not be indicative of the total Hg intake after a CFL breakage, since most of the Hg released may condense on surfaces, where it can persist if inadequate ventilation is present or in the absence of specific cleanup procedures. Equilibrium between Hg in air and condensed Hg will be reached and then Hg will be slowly oxidized to Hg ions. As a consequence, in addition to inhalation exposure, oral exposure to both elemental Hg and Hg ions may occur in children, due to ingestion of dust and hand-to-mouth contact. There are no data available on the potential contribution of such an exposure to total Hg-intake."

These studies are where my information is coming from.

Um, you aren't forced to buy them. Though old-style lightbulbs are hard to find, it IS still possible to buy them. I have to, I have epilepsy, and the flicker rate of energy-saving bulbs brings on my seizures.

I tend to buy lightbulbs in bulk whenever I find them, and you can only get 60 watt now, not 100 watt like I used to use, but they are still around.

And once I found out about the mercury thing, I was actually glad that I couldn't use the energy saving light bulbs...

Sorry link to the SCHER report
ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/environmental_risks/docs/scher_o_124.pdf

Believe me, no more cfls for me. I had heard of mecury being in them. I really just didnt realize how bad it was if one broke. I didnt in my wildest think that they were this toxic. Figured they don't have warnings on the box how bad could they really be.

oh for christ sake take a chill pill. Anyone 40 or over will have been given the mercury out of an old thermometer to play with.

Any one who's studied or worked in any kind of old science lab is certain to have been exposed to mercury from broken thermometers and other equipment.

Tinned tuna and salmon contain mercury.

We haven't all gone as mad as a hatter (they used mercury compounds day in and day out, to stiffen felt I think and did suffer health problems).

Further down that same SCHER report:

"Given the measured Hg air concentrations after CFL breakage, the rapid decrease of these concentrations and the above-stated considerations on the RfC of Hg, the SCHER is of the opinion that a human health risk for adults due to CFL breakage is Hg in Energy saving light bulbs is unlikely"

I won't be running for the hills next time I need to buy a lightbulb.

Thats the problem. People think these are just lightbulbs.I put these in before I had kids Im Not worried about me at all. Worried about my kids. They're nervous systems are developing. An adult can take a lot more. I took a dose and I don't really care. I've broken tubes in small rooms before at work ( though I didnt realize they were this toxic). Not the same thing as at home where kids play on the floors or beds, toys we break these on. The mercury does not just disipate in a couple of minutes it comtaminates anything it breaks on for months. STARTAIL,"Take a chill pill"? Obviously you need to look into the toxicity of mercury based on the route of exposure. Comparing a drop of mercury from a thermometer to a cfl is not the same thing. If you ate mercury it is basically non toxic as you would only absorb 1/1000 of it. Same with when you played with it. It's the vapour that is toxic with an 80% absorbtion rate through the lungs. Mercury vaporizes based on surface area and temp. . 50 ug/hr per squ. Centimetre. A thermometers mercury would vaporize about 50 ug hr (thats PER HOUR most of which would be diluted by airflow giving around 1 ug/m3 levels) even though it is 500 or more mg. a cfl sprays thousands of tiny droplets into the air with a large surface area and rapid evaporation of much of its content giving levels of around OSHA limits for minutes to hours (100 ug in air right away) . I did not say it would make you insane. I said it could very easily poison a child or give them neurological damage.

Maybe it's as bad as I think it is. Maybe it's not. They have no studies done for children, the elderly, pregnant women, or the infirm for acute exposure. There is only one limit I can find that covers everyone and it's the California OEHHA
oehha.ca.gov/air/toxic_contaminants/pdf_zip/Mercury_postSRP3.pdf limit for 1 hour and its 600 ng/m3 these as I've said are hitting 100,000 ng/m3 and some many of the Maine studies breakages had one hour averages waaay over this. If I had known (if people knew) I was supposed to evacuate my kids this would not be an issue.

I knew about this ages ago but have decided to completely ignore it (Sticks Fingers in Ears and sings "LaLaLaLaLaLaLa....")

Really? Everyone knows this in Europe ?
Where the hell was I when this information was being given out? I'm from Canada honestly no one knows this here.

Poison control didnt have a clue here, neither did doctor.

CouthyMow, where have you found your old-stylee light bulbs please?

tia

If you are asking me I'm from canada. They're still sold here till next year. I know for sure you can buy them on eBay.ca

You can still get 100 watt lightbulbs in Poundland now and again. I found some in one of my local ones yesterday and bought all 30 of them

Thanks, Tiger and Jstrick. Will look out for them. I'd given up too easily!

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