Energy-Efficient Lightbulbs Poison Hundreds of Chinese Workers
Chinese workers making energy-saving fluorescent lightbulbs for Western consumers have been sickened by the hundreds due to mercury poisoning.
While poor factory conditions in China shoulder most of the blame, the news does raise serious questions about just how “green” the mercury-rich fluorescent lightbulbs actually are.
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Without a doubt, fluorescent lightbulbs have the potential to significantly reduce worldwide carbon emissions if they continue to be put into wide use. In England, for instance, the atmosphere will be saved an estimated 5m tons of carbon dioxide a year due to the bulbs alone. When it comes to the bigger issues, such as combating global climate change and reducing energy consumption, energy-efficient fluorescents are clearly the green alternative to traditional incandescents. And of course, consumers save more on their electricity bill too, a crucial advantage in this global recession as annual energy costs go up over the hot summer months.
In fact, as air conditioners continuously whir throughout the summer and the energy grid strains to meet the demand in the U.S., it’s difficult to imagine how it could be done without more efficient bulbs and appliances.
But while the environmental and economic advantages of using fluorescent bulbs are paramount, there are also some costs. Fluorescent bulbs work by using electricity to excite mercury vapor, and mercury can be a dangerous, toxic pollutant, perhaps most readily vilified due to its prevalence in the ocean food chain. Thus, proper disposal and care of fluorescent lightbulbs need to come hand in hand with their wide use, otherwise they bring the risk of increased mercury contamination in the environment.
The problem is confounded in the manufacturing process if that mercury is not safely contained and controlled. And that’s precisely the concern in China, where most of the world’s fluorescent lightbulbs are produced, and where factory conditions are poorly regulated and environmentally porous.
In fact, in many cases the factory conditions are downright deplorable, and aside from the long term environmental damage that comes from mercury contamination, hundreds of Chinese workers are exposed to mercury poisoning on a daily basis. These problems have recently escalated due to a rapid increase in foreign demand, particularly because of the European Union’s directive making fluorescent bulbs compulsory by 2012.
The standards for health and safety in the Chinese factories can vary from high tech operations to sweatshops. Some tests have demonstrated concentrations of mercury in factory workers that were 150 times the accepted standard, and many are frequently hospitalized. In one Chinese factory, 121 out of 123 employees had excessive mercury levels.
While fluorescent light bulbs are a near necessity moving into the future in combating climate change and saving on energy consumption, conscious consumers need to be more aware of where and how their bulbs are produced. Furthermore, people need to be better educated about proper handling and disposal of fluorescent bulbs.
Ironically, in China people have actually been aware of mercury’s toxic properties for over 2,000 years. Legend has it that China’s first emperor, Qin, died after swallowing a pill laced with jade and mercury thinking it would bring him eternal life. But there’s no imaginable reason, in our modern world, as to why Chinese workers should take on that symbolic burden for the sake of the West in the global battle against climate change.
Image Credit: Paul Keller on Flickr under a Creative Commons License
Mercury contaminaton is a VERY serious condition for water quality, both for life in our lakes and oceans and the really awful effects it can have on people drinking the water and consuming fish caught in mercury contaminated waters. It isn’t as though the people of China already have not had enough repercussions from their struggle to develop their economy, etc. Your article has prompted me to contact our local waste management company to see what happens to these products from our area. Flourescent type light bulbs have been in existence for a long time, but not in the numbers they are now used. It may be another case of a temporary solution awaiting further development of cleaner, more effecient energy production.
CFL bulbs only save carbon emissions if coal power stations are replaced. As most light bulbs are run at night and power consumption levels at this time should not exceed base load, turning off every single electronic appliance in the country at this time makes no difference to carbon output, baseload power stations will continue to run at the same speed.
Figures suggesting that CFL bulbs save huge amounts of carbon emissions are flawed. They assume that less power consumption = less carbon emissions which in the case of base load power just isn’t true. Claims that air conditioning requirements will also be reduced are more than counteracted by an increase in heating requirements in cooler countries.
Leo Simpson wrote an article in Silicon Chip magazine about all the negative side effects of CFLs that no one usually hears about. A summary of the article is available at http://blog.spuzzdawg.net/?p=4
As usual, the concern for the environment rarely extends beyond our borders. The ‘environmentalists’ here often leave the ugly messes to the brown people of the world. We will utilize oil and coal as long as it is recovered and processed where the brown people live so they can produce the goods we desire. If there is an environmental cost to production let the brown people suffer with it. Such devotion to the environment extends only as far as our comfort, whether physical or psychological. This is very reminiscent of the MTBE that was deemed so necessary as a fuel additive. Am I supposed to now agree to allow these same people to start working to blot out the allegedly offending sun.
This is scary! We’re using so many more of these litebulbs now in the US and I suspect most will be disposed of in the regular trash! I had mercury poisoning (Pink Disease) as a child which still adversely affects me over 50 yrs later! It causes permanent damage resulting in emotional and physical problems which only seem to worsen over time. This is a serious problem!
I agree with you Spuzz. We need to fix the source of our power, not just the lightbulbs and appliances. Though fixing the power consuming products helps, we need to focus on better sources; such as solar and wind power. If everyone had solar panels on the roof of there home, we would cut coal power demand in half. savings thousands of tons of carbon from going into the atmosphere.
I think we are only looking at the potential for energy savings and not the total environmental and human damage that will be caused by using these light bulbs. Not only is there mercury used in the bulbs the coal burning power plants supplying the electricity emit mercury into the environment at an untold rate. You must also consider the carbon cost of shipping and packaging, CFL’s are not the environmental panacea they were promised to be. We must not be fooled by those who put a green label on their products when they only look at their bottom line of their financials.
[...] - ITEM: Energy-Efficient Lightbulbs Poison Hundreds of Chinese Workers [...]
[...] manufacturing can - and should - be done responsibly CFLs in general has unfairly been blamed for the poisoning of hundreds of Chinese workers. While it’s certainly tragic that workers suffer from mercury poisoning, the technology [...]