The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Sunday, November 29th 2009.
Page E15, Advice, Technology Section, The Help Desk, by Bill Husted for the AJC.
Q: When you mentioned the savings which can be achieved - quite correctly - though the exchange of the old-fashioned incandescent lights into the new compact fluorescent lights (CFLs), you forgot to mention that the CFL's contains mercury and therefore should be disposed of properly. - R.M. Santner
A: You are right. The bulbs should not be thrown out with the garbage. Home Depot stores will accept the used bulbs - no matter wher you bought them - at no cost. One nice thing to know is the bulbs are an environmental plus, even with the small amout of mercury they contain. In a New York Times article, Steven Hamburg, interim director of the Center for Environmental Studies at Brown University, notes that power plants put mercury into the environment. And since the CFLs dramatically cut energy use "The avoided mercury emissions are much larger than the mercury we're using in the bulbs."