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DANGERS OF LOW ENERGY LIGHTBULBS

DANGER: Energy-saving lightbulbs

Saturday March 14,2009

By Penny Stretton

Comment Speech Bubble Have your say(31)

SERIOUS concerns were raised yesterday about the toxic effects of energy-saving lightbulbs.

Doctors say scores of people are coming forward with skin complaints after being exposed to the ultra-violet light emitted by the new-style bulbs. And the mercury powder inside them makes handling a broken bulb extremely dangerous.

Exposure to high levels of mercury can cause itching, burning, skin inflammation, kidney problems and insomnia.

Alarming guidelines issued by the Government warn that anyone breaking a low-energy bulb should leave the room immediately.

The guidelines, published on the Defra website, say: “Vacate the room and ventilate it for at least 15 minutes.

If thousands of CFL bulbs were sent to landfill this could pose a problem

Dr Michelle Bloor

“Do not use a vacuum cleaner but clean up using rubber gloves and aim to avoid creating and inhaling airborne dust.”

The debris must be disposed of at a secure site for contaminated material or returned to the retailer.

Last night experts claimed the Government had not done enough to make people aware of the dangers of compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs).

EU rules mean all old incandescent lightbulbs must be phased out by 2012. But the green measure could backfire and end up harming the environment.

Dr Michelle Bloor, of Ports mouth University, said: “If thousands of CFL bulbs were sent to landfill this could pose a problem. Mercury could leak and get into the food chain.

“Mercury cannot escape from an intact lamp. But people must try to avoid contact with it if they do break one.

“The problem is that many councils do not know the correct guidelines for disposing of the lamps. Only six out of 17 we spoke to knew the rules.”

Gerrard Fisher, of recycling group Wrap, said: “Mercury is a dangerous material. Consumers have to be careful.”

Fears that CFLs and halogen lamps can cause migraine, epilepsy and eczema have already been raised. People who suffer from Lupus, a disorder which leaves them housebound bec ause they cannot be exposed to light, are also reporting a flare-up of their condition.

Dr Robert Sarkany, consultant dermatologist at Kings College London, said: “Reactions to fluorescent lights are not well understood. But I am seeing regular handfuls of patients who are complaining of skin allergies when exposed to them, as are my colleagues.

“Common symptoms are severe stinging, burning and itching of the skin, along with red rash. We don’t understand these symptoms well yet, but they do exist. I think it would be perfectly reasonable for people who suffer these very serious problems to still have access to traditional bulbs.”

Lupus sufferer Brenda Ryder, 56, of the Isle of Wight, said: “A total ban on incandescent lighting would be terrible for me.”

Labour MP Janet Dean has raised the issue with ministers. “The Department of Health is looking into it,” she said.

Amazon.co.uk Widgets

DANGERS OF LOW ENERGY LIGHTBULBS

11.04.09, 4:12pm

I have it on good authority from the manufacturers of these lights that these lights should never be used for outdoor lighting. There are several reasons for this.

1) They are too bright for the job.

2) Their UV content is damaging to wildlife, in particular insects, and this will kill them in large numbers. This will then have a concomitant effect on higher order consumers, such as birds, bats, reptiles and amphibians.

All outdoor lighting should be motion operated, hooded, and aimed downwards to prevent light nuisance.

Colin Henshaw.

• Posted by: ColinHenshaw • Report Comment

EVERYONE SHOULD SEE THIS ITS SCARY

15.03.09, 7:08pm

I was searching on the web for pros and cons of CFLs and came across this. Its frightening.
http://www.globaltv.com/globaltv/globalshows/16x9/past.html and watch the show dated 8th of FEB (02/08/09).
As usual the EU is just cosmetic window dressing. No real thought has gone into the new legislation.

But I can't complain my company sells LED lighting
so its free advertising for me.

• Posted by: Dr_S • Report Comment

EU DICTATORSHIP

15.03.09, 12:36pm

We should tell the eu bastards where to shove their orders.

It is about time every citizen in every member country stood up to be counted and demand an end to the eu colonialist dictatorship by its petty dictators in Brussels.

Let's get together to scrap the eu and consign it to the dustbin of history.

We've had more than enough with all its diktat.

Why isn't everyone left to choose whatever light lamps to choose not ban the incandescent lamps?

This is how the eu dictators are regulating all our lives from their comfortable offices in Brussels while we pay for them through our taxes.

People of all member countries let's all get together and rise up against the eu.

• Posted by: antieudictatorship • Report Comment

JOHN1234 .... WELL SAID SIR .

15.03.09, 12:35pm

Too many little Al's bowing down to Slippery Al Gore and the IPPC liars and Politicaly correct lunatics.

CO2 a Minor Climate Player

Tom Segalstad, Associate Professor of Resource and Environmental Geology at the University of Oslo, pointed out in his presentation that the actually measured CO2 in the atmosphere is a fraction of what is predicted by IPCC models. Atmospheric CO2 -- the bogeyman for the alarmists' catastrophic warming scenarios -- is just one-fiftieth of the CO2 in the oceans, and of that fractional amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, only 4% of it is anthropogenic (human caused).

Far from being persistent, the lifetime of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere is on the order of five to six years rather than the 50 to 200 years claimed by the IPCC scenarists. The ocean, with its dissolved calcium, can easily absorb all CO2 emitted. The ocean is a superb CO2 sink -- contrary to the IPCC models, which simplistically assume that the ocean is made of distilled water.

Wiat for it ? .....

Denier , DENIER ... Yawnety yawn yawn .

• Posted by: LordHarri • Report Comment

ENERGY SAVING LIGHTBULBS

15.03.09, 12:28pm

I have been involved with electronics in some way or, both as a profession and as a hobby for most of my life and it astounds me all the rubbish that we are expected to believe.

The Gloabal Warmists would have us "sheep" believe that the planet is in imminent danger and that is the reason we should all switch to CFL's. The Global Warmists also say that anyone who does not believe in Global Warming has some kind of mental disorder.

This rubbish that continually spews out of Brussels like a carrot ridden stream of vomit day by day is purely done because someone as a reader has already said has their feet and snout in the trough. No doubt they probably have shares in a CFL manufacturing company. It would not surprise me in the slightest.

What would both Edison and Joseph Swann say now if they were alive I wonder. Rather than trying to frighten everyone into compliance by phasing out incandescant lightbulbs, would it not better create better ways of generating green electricity Wind, Tidal, Hydroelectric and Solar.

There is aboslutely no need to phase out Incandescent lightbulbs. My cat farts and gives out more CO2 than your average lightbulb.

Also did you all know that the lower the wattage of an incandescent lightbulb, the more inefficient it is, due to the resistance of the filament, whilst higher wattage bulbs are generally more efficient. Have a look on the packet next time you buy one. This is to do with the coating used on the filament.

Ahh well - Roll on the Global Superstate, with its Global Police Force, Army Judicial system etc. Nobody wants it, but it is inferred every day of the week we are going to get it.

Brussles and the paraphenelia of its systems really are a load of cr*p. Need I say more

John Wheatcroft (Coventry'ish)

• Posted by: John1234 • Report Comment

LOW ENERGY LIGHTBULB SALES

15.03.09, 10:49am

the extraordinary thing about this whole dodgey-looking ( somebody has their snout firmly in the trough?) energy saving lightbulb scam is that many ( ?all?) of the spiral bulbs are being sold in UK with no health warning at all on the packaging ( if any); i am UV allergic as so many folk are after common post operative medication - my facial skin burned and i became quite ill after unwittingly using one of the spiral bulbs in my normal reading lamp;
how about the globe energy saving bulbs with an apparently UV safe envelope- can i trust them?
lets face it almost everything has a health warning posted on it these days - yet here we have manufacturers gifted a monopoly by yurrup busily flooding the market with a product of known danger without any warnings at all;
i will be very surprised if any much-needed close examination of the whole background to these bulbs doesn't come up with major bribery and corruption;

• Posted by: jaffgyp • Report Comment