in search of the ultimate bulb - EcoLEDs?
June 1st, 2007Incandescent bulbs are on their way out - in Canada and Australia anyways. Fluorescent are the new cool way to make a difference. HomeDepot, Rona, Canadian Tire, Home Hardware and others now have so many bulbs to select from that you could lose an hour trying to find a ’standard’ bulb.
I like fluorescent bulbs, don’t notice any flicker or difference in colour. However, the mercury thing has always bothered me a little. I know it’s better than incandescent, but now everyone has a little piece of mercury in their homes. What is the likelihood of those people recycling the mercury? For those who aren’t aware, you drop them off at one of the local drop-off depots, or environment day.
Why aren’t LED lights more popular? Why didn’t they catch on? They seem to exist for cars, flashlights, outdoor lights, and other applications - but not household bulbs? I suppose they haven’t tackled the directional light problems yet, but you figure someone would be working on that.
Until ‘depot, crappy tire, rona, home hardware start carrying LEDs to the masses, we can watch and hope that EcoLEDs make some quick progress and become more affordable. Apparently they last about 20 years, have no toxic components and use less power.
I’ve got my fingers crossed.
June 1st, 2007 at 2:45 pm
Yeah, I think the mercury factor opens up a whole new can of worms. For example, how easy is it to break one of these, and if it breaks, what would it cost to really clean it up? It doesn’t sound like it’s going to be as simple as sweeping up the little pieces of glass any more…
June 1st, 2007 at 3:10 pm
That’s a good point - I don’t know where that mercury is, or what happens when you break it. I assume it’s in the plastic base, protected from prying hands, but I never really checked that out!