How might replacing incandescent lamps with compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) impact the environment and society?
What strategies might individuals and communities use to reduce the negative impacts of replacing incandescents with CFLs?
The EnviroTech Project examines the impacts of adopting compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs). This is a fruitful issue to help both teachers and their students learn about the environment and technology assessment. The issue is timely, accessible, relevant to personal health and safety, conceptually rich in terms of the opportunities to learn about the environment and technology, and relevant to civic responsibility.
The recent fervor (e.g., the Energy Star, Change a Light Pledge) to adopt more energy efficient technology and reduce carbon emissions has brought CFLs to the forefront of consumer consciousness. CFLs are readily available to teachers and students. Students can plan and implement experiments to compare the energy consumption and energy intensity of lamps in their labs.
Issues of exposure to mercury due to coal-fired electricity generation, breakage of mercury-containing lamps, and fish consumption are personally relevant. Patterns of interdependence among biotic (food chains, bioaccumulation), abiotic (mercury deposition), and technological systems (coal-fired generators and recycling systems) figure prominently within this issue.
The issue offers rich opportunities to analyze technology, including the power consumption of lamps, energy efficiency, mining processes, coal-fired power generation, and waste stream processes. More importantly, there are numerous opportunities for teachers and students to practice personal and civic responsibility for environmental decision-making, e.g., personally disposing of CFLs like other hazardous wastes or recommending community-based strategies for collecting residential CLFs and reclaiming/recycling the mercury.
Standards for Technological Literacy (ITEA, 2000)
5. Students will develop an understanding of the effects of technology on the environment.
13. Students will develop the abilities to assess the impact of products and systems. (ITEA, 2000)
Resources
Association of Lighting & Mercury Recyclers supports the Lamp Recycling Outreach Project.
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. (1999). ToxFAQs for mercury. Center for Disease Control. Retrieved March 22, 2007, from http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/tfacts46.html
Energy Star. (2008). Compact fluorescent light bulbs. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Energy. Retrieved September 15, 2008, from http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=cfls.pr_cfls
MSNBC Nightly News. (n.d.). Light switch: The hazards of CFL bulbs [Video]. Retrieved September 15, 2008, from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/#23730158
Trasande, L., Landrigan, P.J., & Schechter, C. (2005). Public health and economic consequences of methyl mercury toxicity to the developing brain. Environmental Health Perspectives, 113(5), 590-596. Retrieved March 28, 2008, from http://www.ehponline.org/members/2005/7743/7743.pdf
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (2007). Mercury: Human exposure. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Retrieved February 27, 2007, from http://www.epa.gov/mercury/exposure.htm
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (2008). Mercury-containing light bulb (lamp) recycling. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Retrieved July 21, 2008, from http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/hazwaste/id/univwast/lamps/faqs.htm#14
Revised:
January 29, 2009
Author: Mary Annette Rose