Cleanup of broken CFL light bulb a task for the stout- hearted
Correspondence from readers over discontent at being forced to convert from incandescent to compact fluorescent lamps ( CFL) has been so steady that here’s one more go- round.
Cindy reports her unpleasant experience with a bulb flaming out — and I do mean flaming — despite assurances that this is how they are designed to fail.
The bulb was installed in a high ceiling fixture in a stairwell. She happened to be home when it burst into flame. “It was really flaming,” she writes. “I heard it down the hall.”
Quick- thinking Cindy turned off the power at the wall switch, but the ceiling fixture was too high for her to reach. Fearing that the house might catch fire, she dialed 911.
When the fire department arrived, it found the fire had burned the insulation in the ceiling fixture. The firefighters checked the other fixtures where Cindy had installed CFL light bulbs. They, too, were showing signs of overheating in the plastic base, so she pulled them all out.
She bought her CFL bulbs at a big- box discount store in the U. S., Cindy writes, so all you readers who have been advising a trip across the border for cheaper bulbs, take note.
But there was more to the safety issue than the heat, she discovered.
“When the fire department arrived, they told me to immediately open doors and windows due to the fact there is mercury in the bulbs.”
Indeed, when I went to the federal government website for information about what to do when one of these bulbs shatters, it was like reading a hazmat warning at an industrial site.
Health Canada advises that mercury is the only existing element that produces the ultraviolet wavelengths needed to illuminate CFL bulbs, so we’re stuck with it if we use the technology, which most of us will be forced to do starting next year, when Ottawa bans incandescent bulbs.
Now Health Canada assures us there is no risk if bulbs remain intact. Even if a bulb breaks, risk is low — despite mercury being a highly toxic substance that is increasingly subject to global bans — because the quantity in a CFL is only enough to cover the tip of a ballpoint pen.
However, Health Canada then goes on to provide the following instructions should a CFL bulb break:
First, get all people and pets out of the room immediately and avoid stepping on any broken glass.
Next, ventilate the room for at least 15 minutes before returning to start your cleanup. Do so by opening windows and doors. “This will ensure that mercury vapour levels are reduced before you start your cleaning.”
Don’t use a vacuum cleaner. It will disperse toxic mercury vapour and dust and might contaminate the vacuum. Do not use a broom, either! Sweeping will stir up that toxic dust.
Instead, wearing disposable gloves — if you have any — to prevent direct contact between your skin and the mercury, brush debris onto a piece of stiff paper with another piece of paper, then pick up any remaining fine glass or powder with a sticky strip of duct tape.
Wash the area with a damp paper towel or disposable wet wipe. Seal the broken glass and cleanup materials in a container with a tight- fitting lid to prevent further release of mercury vapour.
If it happened on a rug, immediately take the rug outside, shake it and leave it to air “for as long as is practical.”
If it happened on an installed carpet, so sorry, but you will have to vacuum after the cleanup — still “shut the door to the room or close off the area as much as possible and ventilate the room in which the lamp was broken by opening the windows and doors to the outside.”
When done vacuuming, remove the bag. Now clean the vacuum carefully with a damp paper towel or wet wipe. Place the bag and cleaning materials in a sealed plastic bag. Take it all outside and ventilate the room again for another 15 minutes.
Debris and cleaning materials must be removed from the house, stored in a protected area inaccessible to children and promptly taken to a household hazardous waste location. Check first with your local or provincial authorities to make sure the site will accept them. Don’t put it in your trash.
Oh, and wash your hands afterwards.
Got all that? This is for your convenience after all.
Meanwhile, Canadians will install 375 million of these household improvements within the next couple of years. If the breakage rate is one per cent, my arithmetic tells me Canadians will spend a cumulative total of 10.6 years ventilating their homes during cleanup.
This casts an entirely new light on that old joke: “I’m from the government. I’m here to help.”