The switch is on. It’s been a long, winding, and often dark and stormy road to building an effective recycling program for old mercury light bulbs, but one enlightened Washington state lawmaker, Rep. Sam Hunt, has nonetheless kept plugging away at it.
He has maintained since the get-go that it should be as easy to recycle mercury light bulbs as it is to buy them in the first place. Thanks to Hunt’s continued tenacity, the light of awareness has also shined on a majority of his colleagues. The mercury-light recycling legislation passed the House earlier this year, and then it won Senate approval on Day 54 of this year’s 60-day session.
Hundreds of pounds of mercury remain after the bulbs’ lights go dark, presenting a clear danger to public health and safety. His bill fashions a producer-financed product-stewardship program for collecting, recycling, and disposing of mercury-containing bulbs.
Compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) are the bulbs that contain mercury. Market forces are slowly replacing the CFLs with LED bulbs (“light-emitting diode” bulbs). One can still buy CFLs at most any store, which is where the handling charge would be collected to pay for this new recycling program.