Because they contain mercury, spent fluorescent lamps increasingly cannot be trashed in dumpsters as a solid waste. This is a major challenge for facilities across the country since nearly every facility uses them and over 650 million lamps are disposed of each year.

Mercury is linked to severe health issues such as blurred vision, numbness in limbs, speech impairment, severe convulsions, developmental problems, loss of consciousness, insanity, birth defects, possible autism and more. A single four-foot fluorescent tube contains from five to 50 milligrams of mercury. When conventional disposal methods are used, mercury vapors can travel over 200 miles. Hence, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates fluorescent lamps and stipulates strict guidelines for their disposal.

Facilities that do not comply with these regulations not only bring harm to the environment, they risk costly restitution. In fact, if fluorescent lamps are found in land-fill sites and traced back to the offending parties, they can be penalized with the cost of the landfill cleanup, in addition to any other fines levied. Hence, it greatly benefits companies and institutions to adhere to EPA guidelines and dispose of fluorescent lamps appropriately. Many companies have found such disposal to be both labor and cost intensive, but have endured the burden in an effort to remain compliant. These hurdles have caused the marketplace to develop new methodologies. As a result, fluorescent lamp disposal is far easier and less costly than ever before.

Prior to coming across these new methods, Sheela Backen, Integrated Solid Waste Program Manager at Colorado State University, had to supervise a complex and costly method of fluorescent lamp disposal—packing used lamps back into original cartons and loading them onto a truck.

The truck would then transport the lamps to a recycling facility.

“That method presented a lot of problems,” Backen says. “We couldn’t get people to make sure the cartons were full, taped and marked with the date. When the truck was coming to pick them up, we would have anywhere from six to eight people filling boxes, taping them back up, and then loading this truck. It was not cost-effective at all.”

Not long ago, Backen turned to the Bulb Eater, from Air Cycle Corp. of Broadview, Illinois. “The bulbs are brought to a specific location. I send one person over there for a couple hours a week to crush the tubes. It’s very quick and efficient, and I don’t have to waste so much time trying to load a truck.”

This OSHA and EPA-compliant machine crushes over 1,000 fluorescent lamps (amount depends on size of lamps) and packs them into a 55-gallon drum. The process is fully enclosed and filtered, so that the glass, aluminum, and harmful vapors are contained. When full, the drums are picked up and transported to an EPA permitted lamp recycling facility where the contents are separated, treated, and ultimately reused. Backen utilizes online scheduling to arrange the drum pickup, and has been able to reduce the needed labor from six to eight personnel down to one.

“The cost of shipping a truckload of boxed tubes is a whole lot more than shipping a drum of crushed tubes,” Backen adds. “That was another cost-effective factor that we were looking at when we bought this machine.” Mark Funkhouser, custodial services manager with The Chumash Casino Resort in Santa Ynez Valley, CA, was having similar problems disposing of fluorescent lamps. His method was through a local waste hauler, who would remove the lamps in bins.

Funkhouser now uses a pre-paid recycling program, called EasyPak. “It’s a great system because we can just put the box in a corner of the warehouse, and then as the engineers bring the bulbs back, they put the bulbs in the box and it’s ready for shipping. When it gets full, we just close up the top, stick a label on the box and ship it off and our part is done. It’s definitely reduced our labor.” The program also provides online access to recycling certificates, shipment tracking, and ordering replacement containers. Orderscan even be set up for new containers to ship automatically as full containers are received at the recycling centers.

The decision of which type of service to use is dependent on the facility size and the quantity of lamps needing disposal. “A facility totaling over 200,000 square feet in size is a great candidate for the Bulb Eater, especially when they have limited storage space,” says Scott Beierwaltes, CEO of Air Cycle. “Smaller facilities are typically more attracted to a pre-paid program like EasyPak. They want the same convenience, but usually don’t generate enough lamps to justify a Bulb Eater.” Finally, the expensive necessity of proper fluorescent lamp disposal has been made less tedious and far more cost-effective. ❑