Home Depot to Recycle CFLs Across the Nation
There’s been a lot of buzz around the home improvement blogosphere about the dangers associated with improperly disposing CFLs. Most of us know by now that CFLs contain a small amount of mecury, a toxin that causes all sorts of bad problems, all rooted in mercury poisoning.
The NY Times reported this week that Home Depot will now offer CFL recycling at all of its 1900+ stores across the United States.
Home Depot is to be commended for taking action on this important issue as the US moves towards energy efficient lighting. From the article:
Home Depot’s program, which will accept any maker’s bulbs, will bring relatively convenient recycling within reach of most households. Mr. Jarvis estimated that 75 percent of the nation’s homes are within 10 miles of a Home Depot.
I suspect that with Home Depot’s move on this issue, other retailers will follow. According to the times, Walmart has already sponsored take-back events, where people in the community can safely return used CFLs. Home Depot is the first very large retailer to provide a 365 day program. With 2x the stores, I think Walmart will be looking to follow suit. After all, there’s big money in bulbs.
What do you think? Do you recycle CFLs? Where?
Image courtesy of herms671.
June 28th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Glad to see this, finally. I have been storing bulbs, fluorescent and CFLs for some time (years) waiting for a recycling or hazardous waste program to come along.
June 28th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Very welcome news!! The only way to keep these things out of landfills is to make it easy for folks to recycle them. Very cool news.
June 28th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
This is great news. I always worry about this kind of thing…same with, say, paint and things like that…always feel stupid about what to do with the stuff.
June 29th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Hurray for Home Depot. I’ve told quite a few people about HD recycling CFLs and they are going to when they need to replace a bulb. Our city has a Hazardous Waste Day so that you can take paint, etc. to the DPW and get rid of it properly.