Does your municipality recycle compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFB's)? I emailed the environment department in my region (Waterloo) last week, but they haven't got back to me: Nice representation. However, I haven't heard of them recycling CFB's, although it's possible the local hazardous waste depot takes them.
CFB's cost 30c/bulb to recycle according to Dan Power of FLR. My house has about 24 bulbs in it. If each bulb lasts five years (a very optimistic assumption), that's 5 bulbs/year out of my house. That's $1.50 per year for one household.
Now Waterloo region has over 400,000 people. Lets assume 100,000 households in the region. If we further assume my house is average i.e. four people, 24 light bulbs, that's a cost of $150,000 per year just to recycle light bulbs once every household has no choice but to use compact fluorescents.
That's $150,000 a year over and above present expenses. Who's paying for that? Both my province and country have banned incandescent bulbs, which one of those jurisdictions is going to pick up the extra expense to every municipality of recycling CFB's? Or do they expect that we should just throw them out, and let all that mercury lie around the landfill?
And is it really smart to make virtually mandatory something that you need to take to the hazardous waste depot to get rid of?
