May 2, 2007
COMPACT FLUORESCENT DIMBULBS
I hate for this to become a hobbyhorse, but beware when zealots, politicians, and big business decide to get into bed with you, because when morning comes around, you always wind up being the one with a sore ass and pushed onto the floor without a blanket. I rehashed the idiocy of the current state of compact fluorescent bulbs back in January [see NOT THE BRIGHTEST BULB (OR IDEA) IN THE PACK, 1/03/07]. My point then was that maybe big businesses like Wal-Mart should stop trying to cram more-expensive products down consumers' throats by browbeating suppliers, and maybe try using their market presence to encourage the purchase of products people actually want. I mentioned that Wal-Mart execs trying to misguidedly save the world today will find themselves hauled before Congress 30 years from now to explain how they used their market dominance to force consumers to purchase more-expensive products that turned every landfill in the country into a hazmat site.
Consider this story from last week's Financial Post. A woman installing a compact fluorescent light bulb in her daughter's bedroom accidentally broke it. Concerned, she called Home Depot to see what she should do because she'd heard about the danger of mercury to children. Eventually she got passed along to an environmental agency that recommended a hazmat cleanup contractor that sealed off her daughter's bedroom like she was hiding E.T. in her closet and eventually handed the woman a $2,000 bill. For a broken lightbulb.
Let's multiply that by a 100 million households in the U.S. and I can't wait for the fun. Why don't we just decorate our dinner tables with fizzling sticks of TNT and be sure to depart on our post-prandial constitutionals before our dining rooms are kill zones? Better yet, let's have the government mandate that. I frankly think the hazard of a broken fluorescent bulb is probably overblown, otherwise the giant ones we'd always break against a dumpster in the alley behind a store I worked at when I was a kid would've left me brain damaged; but then perhaps it did.
I'll admit that CFLs are good for things like lighting broad areas harshly from places that would make replacement a pain in the ass. Consumers already gladly shell out the extra dough for long-lasting bulbs in such circumstances. If you want their use encouraged and widespread on a voluntary basis, I recommend using 1% of the energy and money spent touting shitty lights as great and encouraging the adoption of fragile household poison bombs, and put it towards building a better product that people might want to buy because it make sense, saves them money, and they actually want them.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at May 2, 2007 11:34 PM
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