EnvironmentalismFilter: Incandescent Bulbs!

July 8, 2007 5:12 PM

EnvironmentalismFilter: What's the most environmentally responsible thing to do with working incandescent bulbs?

Ok, I want to be more environmentally conscious and reduce my carbon footprint, so I'm planning on switching to compact flourescent bulbs. Well what do I do with my old incandescent bulbs? How about my *new* incandescent bulbs sitting around the house?

posted by sirion to technology (19 comments total)

It would help to know where you're located.
posted by matty at 5:17 PM on July 8, 2007

Give them to friends/neighbours/family who have no intention of switching to the green bulbs and will make use of them?
posted by jamesonandwater at 5:21 PM on July 8, 2007

I'd suspect that the enivronmentally best thing to do would be to use them until they burn out, and then replace them with compact flourescents instead of incandescents.

The energy to make the incandescent bulbs is already spent, so your're looking at whether the increased energy to operate the bulbs over their lifetime is greater than the energy to produce a new compact flourescent and run it for the same time.
posted by Diz at 5:25 PM on July 8, 2007

Giving them away, or tossing them, is the best option. The energy to produce the incandescents is a sunk cost, and you have already made the decision to buy the CF's (so it is not as if the energy to produce the CF's can be saved). Since the CF's use less energy to operate than the incandescents, by a large margin, there is no reason to wait before switching. Basically, waiting costs you money by making you consume more energy.

If you aren't switching every bulb in the house (because you like the incandescent light better for reading, or because you have some fixtures that are inappropriate for CF bulbs, etc), then just put the incandescent bulbs in a box on a shelf -- you will use them up, very slowly, in the remaining fixtures.
posted by Forktine at 5:35 PM on July 8, 2007 [1 favorite]

In Los Angeles
posted by sirion at 5:42 PM on July 8, 2007

Use the incandescents until they burn out. To be honest, without knowing the embodied energy of the fluorescents, there's no way to tell if you are doing anything especially green for the world- the mercury in those bulbs is toxic, and most are imported from another country (Asia). It's hard to know that the resources spent in their creation and transportation, as well as recycling/waste management of mercury toxins, is less than that saved by wholesale, immediate replacement of incandescents. I'm of the opinion that reducing unwanted trash by replacing lightbulbs only on an as-needed basis is the best approach.
posted by oneirodynia at 5:50 PM on July 8, 2007

Legitimate question, enviro-people--

Can, through any reasonable amount of effort, the average American significantly reduce their carbon footprint?

I don't mean this snarkily at all, I really don't know the answer here. My curiosity is basically -- if I go to cloth bags, if I deploy CF instead of incandescent, if I recycle assiduously, am I making more than a .01% dent relative to me driving to work, eating meat, buying things online, running my laptop, and generally living in a consumer society?
posted by effugas at 6:02 PM on July 8, 2007

Can, through any reasonable amount of effort, the average American significantly reduce their carbon footprint?

Immediate and most significant for an individual or family: reduce driving your own car. Bike. Public transportation (which is running anyway.)
posted by The Deej at 6:11 PM on July 8, 2007

I was just wondering this weekend about the incandescent/CFL switch. I bought a bunch of CFLs not long after we moved into our new house, intending to put them in the garage, bathroom, closets, utility room, and other areas where they would "work" in the fixtures. ("work" in the sense of not wanting to have a Tiffany-style lamp with exposed CFLs, for example...)

It's a new house where the builder supplied incandescent bulbs everywhere. They promote energy-efficiency as one of the features of the house and appliances. It seems like using CFLs would add only a relatively small cost to such a large purchase, but it would reduce energy usage even further.

I'm not troubled about it: Here, we use much less electricity than in our old circa-1910 house, and we drive much less in this location, too. But I'll be watching this thread for ideas on what to do with those old bulbs. Maybe I'll give them to my next-door neighbors. :-)
posted by Robert Angelo at 6:12 PM on July 8, 2007

"Carbon footprint" is kind of a misnomer that's used to get suckers to buy "carbon credits".

It's not hard to decide if keeping the old bulbs until they burn out is better or worse than tossing them now. A 60 watt CFL uses 13 watts, or 21% as much power. So, you get almost 5 hours of burn time for the same quantity of electricity as 1 hour in an incandescent.

If you've got lots of lights, you've gotta figure in heat output from those lights too. It's sort of flabbergasting when you really sit down to make a super-efficient structure and begin to realize how many common design elements are counter-intuitive. I could go on for days about that.

Anyway--Here's my advice. The cost of the old bulbs in terms of $ to purchase them is already absorbed. The cost of the new bulbs is too. The cost of the electricity for both is NOT. Meaning--start saving money and electricity NOW, because what you did yesterday is over. Also, remember that your new bulbs won't need replaced for at least 2 years, and that's if they run for 8 hours a day.

I would recommend keeping old bulbs in places that you almost never use---closets, etc. Replace everyday lights with CFL's right now. Even keep the old bulbs around for when the closet ones burn out, if you want.
posted by TomMelee at 6:28 PM on July 8, 2007

You are over thinking your plate of beans. Personally, I would just use them unless I really cared about $15-$20 per month. Any momentary offsets that you create in the demand for electricity will be absorbed by the curve and likely distributed elsewhere as "inefficiency." If you give them to your neighbors, at least you save $20. I wouldn't lose any sleep over it though. /Not Jaded
posted by |n$eCur3 at 6:37 PM on July 8, 2007

Assuming you are in North America, install the CFLs now, and run the incandescents in winter, when the heat won't go to waste.
posted by Kwantsar at 6:58 PM on July 8, 2007 [1 favorite]

And if you decide to use the incandescents, you can make nifty sculptures from them after they burn out.
posted by deinemutti at 7:34 PM on July 8, 2007

run the incandescents in winter

Yeah, that's what I do. Curious to know whether it's actually for the best, I come up with this:

Let's say you use natural gas for heating normally, and electric generation is from coal. That's probably the best case for CFL being better in the winter, and seems entirely possible in Los Angeles. A reasonable guess might be that power station is 33% efficient, including transmission losses, and the gas home heating is 90% efficient. Say switching to fluorescent costs 2/3 less in electricity for lighting. So that's 2/3 divided by 33% is 2 units, minus 90% of 2/3 is about 1.4. Compared to 3 units consumed at the power station initially. Assuming that burning coal is just as good as burning an energy-equivalent amount of gas (which it isn't), your saving in fossil fuels burned would go from roughly 65-75% down to about 40-50%, depending mostly on the efficiency of the fluorescent lights used. So, fluorescent is still better in that case.

On the other hand, if your power comes from nearby hydroelectric generation like it does here, that changes the equation. Or if you use electric heating, then stick with the incandescents in winter, yeah. And then insulate your house better.
posted by sfenders at 7:48 PM on July 8, 2007

I agree that you are overthinking. No matter what, your bulbs WILL end up in a landfill eventually. Whether as burned out bulbs, good bulbs, or sculptures. Whether you toss them, or someone else tosses them doesn't really matter, does it?
posted by The Deej at 7:49 PM on July 8, 2007

Okay, so my calculations were a bit wrong, but still close enough.
posted by sfenders at 8:00 PM on July 8, 2007

Just put them in some out-of-the-way place, and use them as replacements for your few remaining incandescent bulbs (assuming you have some in attics, worklights, reading lamps, etc.). They're pretty small and store easily (up under the eaves in your attic would be a good place), and who knows -- someday, if incandescent bulbs are banned or something, your kids can sell them on the black market and pay for college. ;)
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:08 PM on July 8, 2007

Apparently CFLs are best used in rooms where they're kept on for longer periods of time.

So I'd suggest you use the incandescents, where possible, in situations where they're turned on briefly. A good example is in a bathroom where you have two sets of lights (say, one set on the ceiling and one above the mirror). That way, if you're in the bathroom for a while, to shower or what have you, then use the CFL set. When just going in to wash hands or check the mirror, use the other set.

There are probably other places you can keep using the incandescents, like closets or hallways, so you'll be able to use the remaining supply, and may even want to keep buying those along with CFLs.
posted by TheSecretDecoderRing at 8:40 PM on July 8, 2007

One strategy for lighting that is pretty effective in reducing average energy consumption, which also offers greater flexibility and the low cost of incandescent bulbs, is to install and use electronic dimmer controls (such as the Leviton 6691, which has an illuminated toggle, for easy location in a dark room), on lighting circuits. At about $9 per switch replacement, they are a very cost competitive alternative to CFL lamps, and offer an entire spectrum of lighting levels.

Triac dimmer controls are themselves about 95% efficient in operation, and I find I can cut my average lighting power usage about 50% comfortably, because I only need full illumination for tasks such as reading and sewing. The majority of the time, in most rooms of my home, I'm running incandescent and halogen lamps at 40 to 50% of rated output, where they generate acceptable light, but less heat than at rated output (although admittedly "redder" spectrum). Light bulbs last far longer, as well, because of the inherent "soft start" of being turned up and back down with a dimmer control. And personally, I find blue enhanced incandescent bulb spectrum vastly superior illumination to CFL "daylight" bulbs. Furthermore, within the next few years, incandescent bulb manufacturers will deliver improved incandescent bulb with efficiencies equaling CFL bulbs, that have far fewer disposable issues than CFL bulbs, and that will cost less than CFL bulbs to manufacture. So, electronic dimmers will be even more useful in controlling lighting levels and energy costs with these new generations of incandescent bulbs.

Not for use on circuits driving combination ceiling fans/lights, or for use with fluorescent bulbs, unless the fluorescent lamps are designed for use with triac type dimmers. Limit 600w of controlled lighting per device.
posted by paulsc at 8:46 PM on July 8, 2007