Good news for users of compact fluorescent bulbs--all Home Depot locations will now offer recycling services, according to the New York Times. (See excerpt below.)Home Depot, the nation’s second-largest retailer, will announce on Tuesday that it will take back old compact fluorescents in all 1,973 of its stores in the United States, creating the nation’s most widespread recycling program for the bulbs.
“We kept hearing from the community that there was a little bit of concern about mercury in the C.F.L.’s,” said Ron Jarvis, Home Depot’s senior vice president for environmental innovation, using the industry abbreviation for the bulbs. “And if the C.F.L.’s were in their house, how could they dispose of them?”
Until now, consumers had to seek out local hazardous waste programs or smaller retail chains willing to collect the bulbs for recycling, like Ikea and True Value. Some consumers have waited for retailers like Wal-Mart to have a designated recycling day. Others bought kits to mail the bulbs to a recycling facility.
The Environmental Protection Agency has been looking into putting bulb drop-off boxes at post offices, said Jim Berlow, director of the agency’s hazardous waste minimization and management division.
But those plans are not final, and across most of the country, recycling the bulbs has been inconvenient at best. Industry professionals estimate that the recycling rate is around 2 percent.
“We kept hearing from the community that there was a little bit of concern about mercury in the C.F.L.’s,” said Ron Jarvis, Home Depot’s senior vice president for environmental innovation, using the industry abbreviation for the bulbs. “And if the C.F.L.’s were in their house, how could they dispose of them?”
Until now, consumers had to seek out local hazardous waste programs or smaller retail chains willing to collect the bulbs for recycling, like Ikea and True Value. Some consumers have waited for retailers like Wal-Mart to have a designated recycling day. Others bought kits to mail the bulbs to a recycling facility.
The Environmental Protection Agency has been looking into putting bulb drop-off boxes at post offices, said Jim Berlow, director of the agency’s hazardous waste minimization and management division.
But those plans are not final, and across most of the country, recycling the bulbs has been inconvenient at best. Industry professionals estimate that the recycling rate is around 2 percent.
Interfaith Power and Light is a religious response to global warming with chapters in 26 states and Greater Washington, D.C. Find a link to your local chapter at http://www.theregenerationproject.org/State.Check out the National IPL Blog. Find discounts on energy saving products at http://www.shopipl.org/
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