The federal government of Canada is planning to phase out incandescent light bulbs by 2012 in favor of Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs. The reason? CFL light bulbs are touted as being more energy efficient, cost efficient, and will help to reduce green house gas emissions.
Sounds good doesn't it?
Well, before you run out and convert every light in your residence there are a few things you should consider and be informed about.
Our team focused on finding out specific information about CFL bulbs in terms of actual cost savings, environmental impact, and the aesthetics's of the light emitted by CFL bulbs. We focused on information about CFL bulbs put out by the government, private sector, and feedback from a survey we administered.
Here is what we found out:
There is a cost savings associated with using CFL bulbs. CFL bulbs are more expensive up front, but do typically have a longer life span then incandescent bulbs; so the extra cost up front is recouped from the long life of a CFL bulb.
Because of there lower wattage and longer life span, CFL bulbs on a large scale will help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The federal governments testimonial of the savings around using CFL bulbs pegs the savings around $50 per year.
The only issue with this stat is that if you figure on an average of 30 lights per household it would cost over $150 dollars to make the switch to CFL bulbs and the cost savings would not be immediate; rather it would take a couple years to see a return on your investment in CFL bulbs.
So, if a person was to simply change 2 out of 30 lights in their house to CFL bulbs, the savings would be very negligible and certainly not very noticeable on their electricity bill.
The aforementioned disparity was backed up by a large percentage of survey responses in which respondents were aware of energy savings, but were not seeing a cost savings on their electricity bills.
From an environmental stand point, CFL bulbs are not without some controversy.
CFL bulbs contain mercury whereas incandescent bulbs do not. Incandescent bulbs are typically thrown in the trash when burnt out or broken and that behaviour seems to have passed onto CFL bulbs; a large portion of the respondents we surveyed were disposing of CFL bulbs in their regular garbage.
What is disconcerting is the lack of awareness of the fact that you can (and should consider by-laws governing the disposal of mercury) recycle CFL bulbs. Again, a large number of respondents seemed unaware of either the mercury content and/or the fact that places like most local municipalities and Home Depot can recycle/dispose of CFL bulbs.
To round our research down we did find most respondents did not care for the light emitted from CFL bulbs; CFL light is 'soft' and 'dim' whereas incandescent light is 'bright' and 'room filling'.
There are options CFL bulb type and size wise. It is reasonable to assume that choices CFL bulb wise will expand in the future to close the luminosity gap further between CFL bulbs and incandescent bulbs.
One last interesting factor for consumers to consider is the fact that CFL bulbs do not emit as much heat as incandescent bulbs. This should be a consideration for individuals living in climates where a furnace is required for home heating. A change over to CFL bulbs can have an impact on how often a furnace will turn on and off during cool to cold times of the year.
From a promotional stand point, CFL bulbs are pushed for energy savings and money savings, but the safety and disposal of CFL bulbs, while information is available, is not being promoted.
Ultimately, what our group was left asking was why is the government and/or private sector not sending out information to consumers about the safety and disposal of CFL bulbs? Right now, most of the information about safety and disposal of CFL bulbs can be found on the Internet; why is information about safety and disposal not being sent directly to consumers via the mail in the form of brochures?
Overall, CFL bulbs are a good long term investment. Our teams findings shed light on the fact that the safety, disposal, and shear aesthetics's of CFL bulbs should be taken into consideration by consumers.
Caveat Emptor!
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