(The Epoch Times)
On May 3, 2009 Times Online ran an article called "'Green' Light bulbs Poison Workers" (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6211261.ece) covering how at least hundreds Chinese factory workers have been poisoned and hospitalized because of mercury exposure—mercury used in bulbs destined for the West. Among other things, the article reveals this interesting fact: "A surge in foreign demand, set off by a European Union directive making these bulbs compulsory within three years, has also led to the reopening of mercury mines that have ruined the environment."
The article cites Nanhai Feiyang lighting factory in Foshan City and a CFL factory in Jinzhou as examples of manufacturing sites where workers have been hospitalized with excessive mercury levels sometimes as high as 100-150 times the accepted standard. The Times Online article does not explore in more detail the safety issues for the workers in the Chinese mercury mines, and the environmental impact on local ecological systems and human communities.
The above comment is not meant to suggest that it would be a good idea to keep the traditional lamps, but that CFL light bulbs are not as "environmental friendly" as it might appear from some mainstream media. Further development is probably needed to invent a lamp that has the efficiency of CFL but without mercury. LED lightning might be one such alternative.
However, let’s not forget that it is our modern society and culture, with its extreme dependency on electricity that is the cause of destruction of the natural world upon which humans and other living things on Earth rely on.
Anders Mahlen
Austria
