In m, David Nebenzahl
wrote:

On 8/25/2009 8:00 PM Don Klipstein spake thus:

In article , David Nebenzahl wrote:

On 8/25/2009 6:43 PM Don Klipstein spake thus:

Keep in mind that in this (hypothetical) "Grand Study" it's the total
costs to *everybody* that count, not just what it costs *me* as a
consumer. I know I can recycle my CFLs at a number of places (Home
Depot, Ikea, etc.) for free; what I'm after here is the actual cost of
transporting, storing, dismembering, sorting, and ultimately disposing
of the remains: recycling what can be recycled and landfilling the rest.
Including any energy expended in doing so.

I doubt if you or anyone else here has a figure for that, but it's a
real cost, one I think would be helpful to know. (I would be interested
in your educated guess.)

The Osram study on energy consumption includes "end of life" - I would
think that would include disposal.

As for my cost figures - that was only direct consumer cost, though I
suspect and hope that Home Depot includes cost of their recycling of
brought-in dead CFLs in the cost of their new ones. If you accumulate
your dead ones until the next time you had to go to Home Depot anyway,
there should be extremely negligible cost and energy consumption of your
transportation.

Not to belabor this point too much, but Home Despot doesn't actually
recycle CFLs. I'm guessing that they actually sell the carcasses to
someone who disassembles them and scavenges the usable material. So my
question still remains: how much energy is required for this operation?

I would expect the energy consumption for that part is in the "end of
life" part, which when combined with manufacturing and transportation
amounts to 2% of total life cycle energy usage (assuming the CFL lasts
10,000 hours, 4% if it lasts 5,000 hours).

I'm also curious what usable stuff they're able to extract from all
those bulbs. I can't imagine that anyone wants to reuse any of the
transistors, capacitors, etc., so they must get ground up and somehow
turned into feedstock for ... something.

I would think that the mercury gets recovered and everything else gets
landfilled, especially if they are using lead-free solder.

- Don Klipstein )