not martha

what to do about a broken CFL, learned the hard way

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Yesterday I was carrying a standing lamp up some stairs when my general lack of awareness of the space around me caused me to knock it into the ceiling. The bulb hit at the correct angle and made that strange popping noise before exploding into tiny shards that fell down around me. I shook myself off and vacuumed the glass out of the berber carpet. I was washing my hands when I remembered: oh right, CFL bulbs contain mercury.

I went to the internets to check and, after running off to take a Panic Shower, found some news that made me feel a little better and a little worse.

Apparently, a Hazmat team does not have to get involved in the case of a broken CFL bulb. Most of the resources I found on how to clean up and dispose of a broken CFL bulb repeat these guidelines from the EPA:

    Before Clean-up: Ventilate the Room
    1. Have people and pets leave the room, and don't let anyone walk through the breakage area on their way out.
    2. Open a window and leave the room for 15 minutes or more.
    3. Shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning system, if you have one.
    4. Carefully scoop up glass fragments and powder using stiff paper or cardboard and place them in a glass jar with metal lid (such as a canning jar) or in a sealed plastic bag.
    5. Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass fragments and powder.
    6. Wipe the area clean with damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes and place them in the glass jar or plastic bag.
    7. Do not use a vacuum or broom to clean up the broken bulb on hard surfaces.

Great. But, my bulb broke over my carpet (not to mention myself). What about that? Am I supposed to duct tape all the carpeted areas and hope a mercury contaminated shard of glass doesn't embed itself into the bottom of my foot in a couple of weeks?

Happily a bit later on I tracked down the full EPA guidelines that include:

    Clean-up Steps for Carpeting or Rug
    4. Carefully pick up glass fragments and place them in a glass jar with metal lid (such as a canning jar) or in a sealed plastic bag.
    5. Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass fragments and powder.
    6. If vacuuming is needed after all visible materials are removed, vacuum the area where the bulb was broken.
    7. Remove the vacuum bag (or empty and wipe the canister), and put the bag or vacuum debris in a sealed plastic bag.

    Disposal of Clean-up Materials
    8. Immediately place all cleanup materials outside the building in a trash container or outdoor protected area for the next normal trash.
    9. Wash your hands after disposing of the jars or plastic bags containing clean-up materials.
    10. Check with your local or state government about disposal requirements in your specific area. Some states prohibit such trash disposal and require that broken and unbroken mercury-containing bulbs be taken to a local recycling center.

    Future Cleaning of Carpeting or Rug: Ventilate the Room During and After Vacuuming
    11. The next several times you vacuum, shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning system and open a window prior to vacuuming.
    12. Keep the central heating/air conditioning system shut off and the window open for at least 15 minutes after vacuuming is completed.

This thread on this broken compact flourescent bulb question at Ask Metafilter makes me feel a bit better as well. Basically it says that while mercury is never a good thing to have around, the amount in a broken CFL won't be fatal, but careful clean up is probably important.

Still, needing to carefully ventilate my home due to my possibly mercury-contaminated vacuum the next few times I use it, this doesn't sound so (macroscopically) eco-friendly to me.

Then again, I have been hoping for an excuse to buy a nice yellow Miele vacuum with, swoon, automatic cord retraction for a while now.

categories: the home

41 Comments »

  1. This is totally something I would do and actually.. I'm surprised it hasn't yet. Thanks for the info!! Now when (not if!) it happens I'll be prepared.

    Comment by Justin — March 11, 2008 @ 6:58 am

  2. Get the Miele. You will not believe the awesomeness.

    Comment by amyp — March 11, 2008 @ 7:52 am

  3. Yet another reason to buy CFLs at IKEA, where most sizes come with the coil encased in a thin plastic shell that not only protects the glass, but helps refract the light.

    Comment by Sara — March 11, 2008 @ 8:04 am

  4. good to know! thank you!

    Comment by Jen — March 11, 2008 @ 8:10 am

  5. This is awful. I fell asleep with the lights on the other night and woke up to a loud pop around 4am.... realized it was the new bulb - opened my bedrooom door, prayed I'd live till morning and fell back asleep. Well, I'm here now & hope there's no permanent damage. I'm not really enamored with these bulbs.

    Comment by Tammy — March 11, 2008 @ 8:38 am

  6. This is pretty much why I refuse to buy CFLs. Everyone is focused on how much less energy they use, but the disposal and cleanup issues have not been adequately addressed. How many people even realize you're not supposed to throw CFLs in the garbage, or know where to take them to dispose of them, or (most importantly) are willing to go out of their way to do so? How many people even realize they contain mercury? To my mind that's not an acceptable tradeoff for the energy savings.

    Rant over. :)

    Comment by Angela — March 11, 2008 @ 8:43 am

  7. that is one fiiiiiine vacuum.

    Comment by Gina — March 11, 2008 @ 9:08 am

  8. ok.that is just weird. My blog post today is about spilled mercury as well. With three kids in the house we actually had the local fire dept/haz mat team there. All was fine.

    Comment by Megan — March 11, 2008 @ 9:22 am

  9. Good info, thanks. I love your blog.

    Comment by Judy — March 11, 2008 @ 10:29 am

  10. oh great, we broke one of those once, all over our dining room table... shattered everywhere... i pretty much did every bit of clean up incorrectly...

    Comment by cara — March 11, 2008 @ 10:54 am

  11. Just reading thru this I realised that all of a sudden there is more expenses to the cost and energy saving of a CFL bulb. If per each one that one pops/breaks you have to use all that paper towel to clean and then an entire bag for the vacuum cleaner which costs $3.00 at an average cost, then this becomes quite an expensive bulb.... That's just the cynic in me.
    On the other hand Megan, I own the yellow Miele and the HEPA filtered white one, they are a blessing. Now my entire family in Europe owns one... :-)

    Comment by Ana — March 11, 2008 @ 10:56 am

  12. I broke a bulb last fall and wish I had known this. I just picked up the broken pieces and vacuumed the carpet.

    Comment by Melissa A. — March 11, 2008 @ 11:08 am

  13. And, frighteningly enough, I once had a big ball of mercury that I played with (gift from a dentist) that I'm pretty sure was absorbed into my skin and bathroom cabinets. Hope the suceeding family hasn't died of mercury exposure and at least it seems that neither I nor kids have been irretrievably damaged by heavy metal poisoning! Although maybe that is why I am allergic to thimerosal.

    Comment by Gail — March 11, 2008 @ 11:19 am

  14. okay.. so... what happens to you if you broke SEVERAL cfl bulbs over the summer while working as a light bulb changer in a condo community where every incandescent bulb was replaced with CFLs in hundreds of dwellings ... and... your training did not include how to clean it up when they break... and i didnt clean them up like this....

    am i doing to die?

    Comment by susan — March 11, 2008 @ 11:25 am

  15. The instructions here are the safes way. However no disasters will happen if not followed in detail.

    As for macro effects: the amount of mercury in a CFL is less than what a coal fired plant would emit generating the saved energy.

    Comment by Thomas — March 11, 2008 @ 11:28 am

  16. I have a yellow Miele (school bus yellow, we call it). I got it for Christmas when my brother was serving in Iraq and my mother had only one kid (20-something) to spoil. I could NEVER afford one on my own. It is one of my most prized possessions.

    Comment by Shannon — March 11, 2008 @ 11:38 am

  17. wow. i had no idea the work involved in cleaning up after a little light bulb!

    i also must encourage you to go for it with the miele. i've had one for two years now and that thing has changed my whole view of vacuuming. now i get my best ideas when i'm in zen mode cleaning the house!

    thanks for this post.

    Comment by gigi — March 11, 2008 @ 12:02 pm

  18. Buy a Dyson... the best vacuum cleaners ever....

    Comment by paola — March 11, 2008 @ 1:07 pm

  19. When I was a kid, if we broke a thermometer, we'd play with the mercury. We also ran outside to watch the crop dusters swoop down in the field bahind the house, and drank well water from a hose.
    Just sayin'.

    Comment by Susan — March 11, 2008 @ 4:02 pm

  20. Holy crap! Thanks so much for the tip!!! I never would have thought of any of that.

    Comment by EB — March 11, 2008 @ 4:42 pm

  21. I found it "amusing" to compare the craze over mercury thermometers to the huge lack of info and awareness about these cfl bulbs. Our environmental health and safety department (I am a grad student in the biological sciences) just went through a huge effort to replace and dispose of all the mercury thermometers in our school and the associated hospital. At least in our lab, we've had the same set of thermometers for years and years (so it's not like a disposable/consumable item) and a thermometer has only broken once in the last ten years or so, and he who broke it knew exactly how to deal with the mercury danger. Now, all over the place, people are buying these much more fragile, disposable/consumable items, with nothing like the training we must undergo to be using those mercury thermometers. Baffling.

    {I do understand that there is much more mercury in a thermometer than in these bulbs, but I'd like to know how the math works out when you factor in the mass effect of how many more lightbulbs will be bought and broken or not disposed of correctly)

    Comment by tina — March 11, 2008 @ 5:20 pm

  22. Susan - I too played with mercury from a broken thermometer when I was a kid, and I can pass myself off as normal most of the time.

    Tina - I'm curious as well. The Ask Metafilter thread linked to above contains this advisement: "But realistically, you probably eat more mercury in fish in a year than is on your carpet now." To which somebody added "...and the mercury in the fish is the amazingly toxic organic compounds, not the far less toxic metallic type." So overall I'm not too freaked out, but I'm a bit angry that these bulbs that are so good for the environment are so bad for me.

    Comment by megan — March 11, 2008 @ 6:50 pm

  23. Yeah -- I'm still not quite clear on how all those CFL bulbs, once burnt out and leaching mercury into our landfills, are going to be "better" for the environment that all those incandescent bulbs we grew up with.

    Comment by Julie — March 11, 2008 @ 8:50 pm

  24. I recall reading in the past that the manufacturing of incandescent bulbs (during refinement of tungsten) uses more mercury than is contained in the vapor within a CFL bulb.

    Comment by MC — March 12, 2008 @ 4:48 am

  25. I was considering switching, but between the dog and child, I think I'll stick with my regular lightbulbs. If I have to consult the EPA to clean up when I break one (and I dropped a lightbulb the other day when I was cleaning out the cabinet I store them in), I'll pass.

    Comment by liz — March 12, 2008 @ 6:29 am

  26. Really good information! I had no idea that such clean up would be necessary. I'll definitely only be buying the energy efficient bulbs from now on.

    Comment by Kimberly Ann — March 12, 2008 @ 7:52 am

  27. It is elemental mercury and as a result not much of a hazard. Like the stuff in old thermometers.. it is when you start mixing other stuff into mercury and start heating it up or dropping acid on it that mercury gets ugly

    Comment by Maman — March 12, 2008 @ 8:10 am

  28. I was just thinking about when I was 9 and I put my thermometer in my tea and the damn thing broke and I was scared I would get in trouble...but I can't remember what I did. Was I really stupid enough to drink the tea? I guess I'm normal enough and lord knows my daughter is as healthy as a horse.

    Thanks for the vacuum recommendations. I miss my Kenmore canister vac (bought a Eureka upright to replace the Kenmore when I killed it during renovation, and I HATE it).

    Comment by dana — March 12, 2008 @ 8:26 am

  29. I'm with Dana...remembering using mercury thermometers as a child and being warned to be very careful, but it certainly not being the end of the world if one broke.

    Comment by Amy — March 14, 2008 @ 9:55 pm

  30. Nice. I bumped my head on one and it broke right over me and my two year old. I just grabbed him and ran out of the room, waited for a little, went back and vacuumed it up. I wish I would have know this before, also wish we would have showered right away. He didn't have anything visible on him. I only worry about him.

    I took a ball of mercury to my first grade show and tell. I passed it around in a coffee can. I told everyone not to touch it, but some kid did. Funny thing though, no one ever said a word b/c it wasn't really feared then. I wouldn't be happy if that was my kids class!

    Comment by Dave — March 19, 2008 @ 5:02 pm

  31. I've been reading on this subject and I'm now sufficiently freaked about CF bulbs and proper disposal. I don't feel good about buying something that needs to be disposed of as hazardous waste. I did stumbled across the "EcoLEDs." Have you heard anything about these? They are super efficient and mercury free. They are also SUPER pricey. Hopefully the price will drop in the near future. We can dream, right?

    http://www.ecoleds.com/

    Comment by Laura — March 22, 2008 @ 12:39 pm

  32. Thanks for the story. My daughter hit a bulb with her basketball and brought the broken piece up to me. I just cleaned the rest up, not knowing anything about the mecury or potential hazards. Both my kids were in the immediate area and I did not have them leave. After all I have read, given she touched the debris, I will get her the blood or urine test for mecury contamination. Horrible trade off in order to use these bulbs. I did not dispose of it properly either, so I have contaminated others and the earth. Nothing was on the package about any of this. A friend sent me a news clips. Exposure was three weeks ago!

    Comment by Susan M — March 23, 2008 @ 7:42 am

  33. Working in a lighting shop, where we deal with broken fluorescent bulbs every day, I'm a bit concerned about the accumulative effects.
    And while the amount of mercury in a bulb is less than that emitted from the power plant, I am not working under the plant, and certainly not directly exposed every day to the mercury. Caution to be used on something, that while it is a great idea, can be dangerous and mercury is linked to such things as autism, alzheimers and asthma. I still have CFL's in every fitting in my house though.

    Comment by Melanie — March 27, 2008 @ 2:38 am

  34. That must have been so scary! I've never thought about eco-friendly lightbulb mishaps before. Thanks for the information and I'm glad you're alright!

    Comment by Checkerspot — April 9, 2008 @ 8:36 am

  35. What utter overreaction to a mundane experience...people have no sense of what's dangerous and what's not, and the EPA just make it worse by their vastly overblown instructions, no doubt written by a cadre of lawyers.

    See my complete rant on this issue at website.

    Comment by chandru — April 14, 2008 @ 9:02 am

  36. "I don't feel good about buying something that needs to be disposed of as hazardous waste."

    Do you buy paint? Hairspray? Batteries? Ant/roach/rat poison/traps? Drive a car? Use a computer? Television? Cell phone?

    All of those things are supposed to be disposed of as hazardous wastes. How many people actually do it?

    And even when they do the "right" thing and send them in to be recycled...a lot of them end up getting shipped to Mexico or China, where underpaid workers get to strip the mercury, lead, arsenic, whatever right out of them. All day--with no ventilators, gloves, goggles...

    This problem is bigger than energy savings and a small inconvenience when a light bulb breaks.

    Get informed before you rant... :)

    Comment by Dr. Kate — June 15, 2008 @ 7:10 am

  37. There is actually a company out there that do sale Mercury free light bulb and also reduce Electrode Magnetic Field (EMF). I been replacing them in my house and enjoy it very much. It much softer for my eye and don't have that much of a headache. It a little pricing but it worth every penny. You can read about it at xediadirect.com/go-green.

    Comment by Janyce — June 17, 2008 @ 9:57 pm

  38. I accidentally broke one of these over my head as well, while the damn thing was turned on no less and in the kitchen. I panicked at first cause "ZOMG CFLs HAVE MERCURY!!!11" but not knowing what else to do I just picked up the glass pieces bare-handed, threw them in the trash and vacuumed up what was left. I threw the busted CFL in the trash too. I then wiped down all the surfaces that were under the bulb when it broke. Then I discover a HAZMAT-like procedure online for properly handling this AFTER I did it wrong.

    But after calling the maker of the bulb (TCPI) the woman assured me this: the glass part itself does not contain mercury, but rather the hard plastic base itself! She said it was very unlikely that any mercury would be released and if there was it would be less than the amount you find in 2 cans of tuna. She said clean up like you would any broken incandescent bulb.

    Comment by Bob — August 1, 2008 @ 2:40 pm

  39. [...] been wondering if it’s time to switch to cfl lights….this post gives me pause, however. i’m a colossal klutz and i’ve got a dog and a cat who both [...]

    Pingback by linky lurve « elle recherche — August 11, 2008 @ 12:40 pm

  40. I have a Miele Vacuum, Just wondering how that helps. Do I just have to change the filter after I vacuum. I just broke one of those bulbs.

    Comment by Sabrina Thorn — January 2, 2009 @ 8:42 am

  41. I found your site while googling what to do with a broken bulb - I just broke one, but fortunately it was still in the box so there wasn't too much mess!

    I poked around your site a bit, and I love your mini baking! I will be back to explore more.

    Comment by Lyndsey — March 5, 2009 @ 10:49 am



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