No light at end of the tunnel for recycler of globes
Reporter - Adam Morton; The Age November 3, 2008
AUSTRALIA'S only recycling plant for climate-friendly fluorescent light bulbs has said it may have to close because of a lack of business - a sign that most globes are going to landfill.
The warning has fuelled calls for a meeting of environment ministers in Adelaide this week to ban the dumping of fluorescent globes, which contain the toxic element mercury.
The Federal Government this month will restrict the importation of energy-inefficient incandescent lights, to be followed by an outright sales ban next November - moves that will dramatically boost use of fluorescent globes.
Peter Bitto, national sales manager of CMA EcoCycle in Campbellfield, said the company needed 10% of the nation's fluorescent lights to break even, but had secured only 2% since Victorian Environment Minister Gavin Jennings opened the plant in March.
"I imagine if we don't get support from the Government in the next year or so we will have to close down," he said.
The Campbellfield plant is the only EPA-licensed mercury recycling plant in Australia. Mr Bitto said he would welcome competition, but it would never come unless there was a landfill ban to force industry to act.
"If I took a jar of mercury to the Brooklyn tip, the EPA would rightly throw the book at me, yet if I take a truck-full of lighting it's OK. It doesn't make sense," he said.
The Federal Government has said that switching from inefficient lighting to fluorescent lamps will be the greenhouse equivalent of decommissioning a small coal-fired power station.
The State Government gave away 500,000 fluorescent globes earlier this year.
An average fluorescent bulb contains only 4 milligrams of mercury, but it is estimated more than 57 million lighting products are dumped annually. This is more than 0.228 tonnes of mercury dumped into the environment
Mercury becomes potentially toxic as the organic compound methyl mercury when it enters the food chain. Environment Victoria campaigner Fraser Brindle called on the State Government to expand a pilot program that offers households - but not businesses - fluorescent light recycling bins at stores in Heidelberg, Ballast and Ararat.
Mr Jennings said the Victorian Government and Federal Government were working on a joint approach to recycling that would be considered at the Environment Protection and Heritage Council meeting of environment ministers this week.
Ben Pratt, a spokesman for Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett, said: "Overseas studies suggest that dangerous exposure to mercury from (light globes) is unlikely in waste management processes or households."
Items on the environment ministers' agenda this week include wind farm regulations, kangaroo culling and waste, including a Victorian submission on charging a checkout levy for plastic bags.
State Opposition environment spokesman David Davis said that waste policy in Victoria was a shambles and that mercury was a poison that needed to be kept from landfill.
End of 'AGE' article
To read a case history of the terrible effects of mercury poisoning, click HERE
The State Government and Blue Mountains City Council is aware of this problem but very little is being done about it. The Council offers a toxic waste recycling period at the tip for a few days twice a year. This clearly unrealistic as people are expected to store old lights for up to 6 months before being able to dispose of them. The result is as above - most get dumped into landfill !!
Why can't the Council Tip accept old fluorescent lights continuously ?
Maybe there should be a substantial deposit on fluorescent lamps ? - Note: this will NOT discourage sales because very soon incandescent lamps will not be available.
Please do your bit for the environment and pressure the State Government and Blue Mountains City Council to offer facilities - open all year round, where one can take any failed fluorescent lights at no charge - as there is pressure to do so in Victoria