Fluorescent Light Bulb Information

I've broken a fluorescent bulb in my home. What do I do?

Maine Compact Fluorescent Lamp Breakage Study Report

Proper Recycling of Fluorescent Bulbs and Product Stewardship

Mercury is a significant environmental problem in Maine. Because they contain mercury, Maine law requires businesses and consumers to recycle all mercury added lamps. When one of these bulbs breaks, mercury is released.  Examples of mercury added lamps include fluorescent, neon, black lights, UV, and high intensity discharge bulbs. In Maine, it is illegal to throw mercury added bulbs in the trash.

Maine requires manufacturers of mercury-added lamps to implement a product stewardship program for the recycling of these bulbs from households.  The manufacturers’ program will provide containers to municipal waste collection sites and to retailers for storage, shipping and recycling of the bulbs.

If you can not throw them away, what should you do with burnt out bulbs?

Answer: Recycle them.

There are three main ways to recycle spent bulbs:

1. Your household can recycle intact CFLs at any of more than 200 participating retail stores (MS Excel) for free. These stores are trained in accordance with Maine DEP requirements. The used, unbroken CFLs will be collected and recycled, with as many of the CFL components as possible recovered for reuse. If anyone finds any errors or changes, please contact the Hazardous Waste Program staff at 207-287-2651.

2. You can also recycle CFLs (and other fluorescent bulbs) where your municipality has made lamp recycling arrangements (MS Excel) (pdf format). The green blocks signify that we have gathered the information from those towns.  White means we were not able to reach anyone in that municipal office.  Blue means the facility will take from anyone in the state not just the residents in their town. Some municipalities allow both households and businesses to use the municipality's CFL recycling site.
Businesses should check the listing to see if their municipality will take their bulbs.

3. Businesses may find the following link for recycling companies helpful:

UW Management and Recycling Companies (pdf format)

 

Energy Savings

According to the US Department of Energy, if we all switched our five most-highly used light bulbs to compact fluorescents, we would save enough electricity to shut down 21 power plants—about 800 billion kilowatt-hours. That means a lot less carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides going into the air and causing problems like climate change, acid rain, ozone and contaminated fish. Not to mention the money we’d save on our monthly electric bills.

More information

Maine manufacturer responsibility law for mercury-added lamps (pdf format)

History and facts on CFL breakage in Prospect, Maine (pdf format)

Contact information

For more information contact Stacy Ladner, Heather Jackson or Deborah Stahler at (207) 287-2651.

For more information about Product Stewardship contact Carole Cifrino at (207) 287-2651.