"N Cook" wrote in message
...
William Sommerwerck wrote in message
. ..
In my opinion, they should be outlawed world-wide. Period. Suddenly,
just as the government here in the UK looks set to ban sales of
incandescents, a movement is rearing up to bring to the attention of
the great unwashed (and the dumb politicians) the potential hazards
of using, accidentally breaking, and safely disposing of CFLs. I
sincerely
hope that it gains sufficient momentum to cast enough doubt over this
dreadful knee-jerk technology, to knock its viability as a direct
replacement
for incandescents, firmly on the head...

The amount of mercury in any single bulb is small. And it's elemental
mercury, not an organic mercury compound, which is not as toxic as the
latter.

We've been using fluroescent lamps for almost 70 years. Their presence
didn't seem to cause much in the way of environmental problems. Or
scratched
hands.

I've replaced several incandescents with CFLs, and I'm very, very
pleased.
Part of it is that they're in glass fixtures that have a slightly warm
cast.
You'd never know they're CFLs.



According to this site
http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/energystar/en...answers.cfm#me
rcury
The average mercury content in a CFL is about 3 milligrams - roughly the
amount it would take to cover the tip of a ball-point pen.

And for a home thermometer - 500 milligrams - 2 grams.

As a very small kid I managed to break the bulb of a thermometer in my
mouth.
Then and ecades on and no known physical or mental impairmtgk erkscf dbf
qwkcsfd ..........


Also as a kid, I had a small pot of mercury that I had 'rescued' from a
mercury tilt switch - rather a large one - that was on some lump of junk
found on a piece of wasteland where I used to play ... Boy, do you remember
the thrill of finding some piece of mysterious 'treasure' like this on those
endless summer days ... ?

Anyway, I used to play with the stuff in my hands for hours, so it can't
have been *that* readily poisonous. Still, if concerns about the toxicity of
mercury makes this rotten government sit back and take stock of what they
are doing in the name of the great god Green, and it makes them think again
about forcing us to adopt the crappy things by banning sales of
incandescents, then that's fine with me, and I'll be up there with the best
of 'em, screaming about the terrible dangers of having mercury loose in the
home for your children to inhale and swallow !

As a youth, I also used to keep a mouthful of lead airgun pellets to slip
rapidly into my gun, instead of having to hunt amongst the fluff in my
pocket, or trying to wrestle the box open without dropping them all. They
would stay in my mouth for hours, again during those endless summer days of
the school break. I don't suppose that you can get any worse than that for
potential toxicity, but I'm still around and compos mentis, as are all my
mates who used to do the same thing.

Arfa