Thurston County Solid Waste Educates About Recycling Mercury-Containing Light Bulbs

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Submitted by Thurston County Solid Waste

Are you switching to energy efficient lights in order to save money? Some energy efficient bulbs such as Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFL) and straight fluorescent tubes contain mercury and require special disposal. It is unsafe to put lights that have mercury in the trash. Mercury is a toxin that can be a serious risk to your health and to the environment if it is not handled properly.

If you have burned out mercury-containing lights you can drop them off at:

Thurston County Waste and Recovery Center, HazoHouse, 2418 Hogum Bay Rd, Lacey WA 98516 (360) 867-2491. They take all kinds of mercury containing-lights including straight fluorescent tubes, compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), high-intensity discharge lamps, neon lamps, and mercury vapor lamps. For their hours of operation click here.

There are 12 locations in Thurston County that take CFL bulbs but not other types of mercury-containing lights. To find a location near you, check Puget Sound Energy bulb drop off locator.

Fluorescent lights are fragile and should be handled carefully. Protect used lights from breaking during transportation to a recycling facility. Wrap them in newspaper or place them in the original packaging. Please do not tape tubes together, as they will need to be loose to be recycled. There are easy-to-make carriers using beverage holders for the bulbs.

If you break a florescent light, it is very important to follow proper ventilation and clean-up to protect your health. Guidelines can be found at “Cleaning up a Broken CFL,” US Environmental Protection Agency.

For more information on reuse and recycling locations for other items, please visit our database at www.WhereDoITakeMy.org.

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This article contains copyrighted material, the use of which may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Thurston County Solid Waste is making it available to advance understanding of environmental, consumer, economic and governmental issues. This constitutes fair use of such copyrighted material as provided for in U.S. Copyright Law, Section 107 ( http://bit.ly/14StMYW). Accordingly, the material in this article is made available without profit to those who have requested it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this article for purposes beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

 

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