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              A campaign to save money and help the environment by using energy efficient light bulbs

Sunday, August 26, 2012


Ban The Bulb : The End of the Beginning...
Creating A Goal and Deadline for Action

On 1 September 2012, the final stage of the EU's light bulb ban will come into force, with 40W and 25W incandescents being phased out in 27 European countries.

This is a big day for the Ban The Bulb campaign, which was started via this blog in early 2005.

When this campaign was founded, the idea of phasing out and banning incandescent light bulbs after 120 years of loyal service appeared both laughable and almost impossible.

However, the case for action was compelling and the Ban The Bulb campaign set out to make this case.

Thanks to the world's inventors, it simply hasn't remained necessary to carry on heating a tungsten wire to 2000°C in order to produce reliable light and more energy efficient alternatives have got smaller, brighter and cheaper.

Initially, the Ban The Bulb campaign concentrated on making the case for using compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) which cost more to buy, but then use 60% - 70% less electricity over the whole of their 5 - 10 times longer lifetimes.

As others technologies have been refined it has also become possible to start recommending other technologies, such as LEDs as viable alternatives... and in many ways it is amazing how much has been possible in so little time!

A Virtuous Circle

Interestingly, once politicians started to show an interest in phasing out incandescent light bulbs, retailers started to demand better energy saving designs from manufacturers and governments started to encourage energy companies to subsidise compact fluorescent lamps in shops rather then distribute unrequested lamps directly to households.

A virtuous circle of individual, mutually supporting measures started to alter what looked possible for everyone.

These early stirrings of action were crucial and helped to show that another world was possible and that different players were willing to act.

No-one likes to change the way they do things on their own, and this momentum and mutual support played an important role in enabling the bigger moves which quickly started to look possible.

Success Breeds Success

In Feb 2006, the BBC News website invited the Ban The Bulb campaign to outline why phasing out incandescent light bulbs was a good idea and to address some of the common questions that frequently arise.

By mid 2006, countries with chronic power shortages such as Cuba and Venezuela had started to swap incandescents with CFLs in poor suburbs, as a way of keeping their lights on.

These moves were important national scale efforts, but did not involve bans.

As far as we can tell, the use of a light bulb ban was first seriously floated by a politician in early 2007, when Prime Minister Tony Blair asked the European Commission to consider a light bulb ban as a way of meeting ambitious goals to cut carbon emissions by 20% by 2020. This request carried relatively little political risk, as any success would be bigger and any failure the EU's fault, but still mattered at the time.

While all of this was happening an Assembly Member in California called Lloyd Levine and an Australian Environment Minister called Malcolm Turnbull announced state and national plans for light bulb bans, which were supported by Philips.

All of sudden, politicians were racing to claim the credit for banning light bulbs, a truly incredible state of affairs given this was only a couple of years into the Ban The Bulb campaign.

Fortunately, the EU has gradually come through and put in place the most widespread bans to have actually been delivered anywhere in the world.

Interestingly, the Chinese have also been especially bold, perhaps in ways that have proven pivotal, and announced plans both to stop producing incandescent light bulbs and seize the emerging business opportunities associated with light emitting diodes (LEDs) - thereby turning what had been seen as a negative into a commercial imperative.

Changing the Rules of the Game

Almost every household appliance, including fridges, TVs and ovens, already exists in a form that uses 50% - 80% less energy than the most common designs... as was the case with light bulbs, when this campaign was founded.

This means that we do not have to wait for any new technologies to be invented or decades for the next generation of power stations to be built, we simply need to bring existing technologies into widespread and cheaper use.

As light bulbs have shown, markets do not change by magic, they change as a result of laws being made.

However, once you decide to change the rules of the game, manufacturers will innovate, retailers will offer new products and economies of scale will allow prices to drop.

Without changing the rules, players will carry on playing to the established parameters and very little will ever change.

The End of The Beginning...

The process of phasing out light bulbs has had its fair share of ups and downs, but now bans have been put in place in 30 countries around the world, the next generation of technologies have plummeted in price and it has become normal to buy LEDs which use 90% less electricity to make the same amount of light... are fully dimmable... and produce a daylight spectrum of light.

None of this would have happened for many more years, if it were not for the bans that have forced all manufacturers, retailers, consumers and thus markets to change and to adapt.

This single fact should give us all hope that we will face up to the even bigger energy challenges that remain to be addressed - particularly in relation to mainstreaming energy efficiency and driving innovation.

Now we need to build on this success by using laws to ensure that within our lifetimes all cars, houses and household appliances will use 80% - 90% less energy to meet our needs, and ensure that more energy efficient products are made affordable through mass adoption and economies of scale.

We also need to make sure that every single CFL now in use is properly recycled!

Acknowledgements

Over the years, a large number of impressive people have emerged in every sector and organisation BTB has dealt with, and Ban The Bulb would like to acknowledge the efforts of Jon Dee in Australia and Greenpeace in India.

The Daily Mail even distributed free CFLs at one stage!

A fuller list of acknowledgements can be seen here.

The overwhelming majority of consumers have been much more open to change and flexible than is generally assumed, once the case for change has been made and serious efforts have been made to ensure that the new technologies are cheap and easy to use.

Aiming Higher

All future predictions for energy demand assume that we will continue to use ever larger amounts of energy, until oil and gas run out, and that we will continue to waste energy on a prolific basis.

We don't have to continue wasting precious resources and polluting the environment without trying to save energy and clearly it is both technically feasible and economic sensible to bring many new technologies into use.

I therefore hope that the successful transformation of domestic lighting within 7 years will encourage you to do your bit to help humanity aim higher...


Thursday, May 17, 2012


Recycling Manifesto : How to Recycle 100% of CFLs

Why the recycling of all used CFLs is necessary

The banning of domestic incandescent light bulbs has resulted in more energy efficient compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) being used.

This is great in terms of reducing energy use, carbon emissions and bills but has also created a new stream of waste, which needs to be responsibly and reliably recycled. 

Each CFL contains between 1mg and 5mg of mercury. Mercury is a toxic substance and always needs to be disposed of safely.

At present, no waste system capable of recycling 100% of CFLs, or other hazardous household waste, has been created anywhere in the world and this situation needs to change before millions of used CFLs start entering the waste system at the end of their 4 – 6 year useful lives.

Learning from Success

During the development of this Recycling Manifesto, Ban The Bulb has researched the countries that have been most successful at recycling domestic compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) and explored how Sweden manages to recycle 75% of domestic CFLs and 90% of commercial fluorescent lighting.

Sweden possesses a relatively small and highly organised population and has developed a single, centrally organised recycling system, administered by El-Kretsen, which reaches into every local community via approximately 1000 standardised collection sites.

The Netherlands also uses 1 organisation to organise its recycling (http://www.wecycle.nl), Ireland uses 2 organisations and France uses 1 system for CFLs and a total of 4 systems for all electrical waste (referred to as WEEE or e-waste in the industry).

By contrast, the UK uses approximately 40 different recycling schemes to recycle CFLs, and other electrical “WEEE” waste.

The UK’s hugely fragmented and bureaucratic approach to recycling imposes heavy organisational and financial costs and is a massive barrier to cost effective, efficient and simple recycling.

Recommendation 1

Unify and standardise the system for recycling CFLs.

The UK, and EU, must do more to ensure that it is cheap, simple and easy to recycle all CFLs, e-waste and hazardous domestic waste. 

Governments need to show leadership by simplifying and standardising the processes associated with recycling CFLs, other e-waste, batteries and cables under WEEE and similar legislation.

National recycling schemes should be placed under the control of umbrella bodies, which make the collection and recycling of 100% of waste their primary goals. 
  
Recommendation 2

Align the interests of CFL collectors and recyclers.

The interests of collectors and recyclers need to become better aligned.

Under the current WEEE laws, waste collectors are able charge ransom prices to the manufacturers that are forced to comply with the legislation, which requires them to fund a proportion of recycling exactly proportionate to their sales.

In the UK, DEFRA’s Red Tape Challenge could play a crucially important role in this process by fairly balancing the needs of different markets participants and ensuring positive outcomes, which work in the interests of society and the environment.

We need a new system, which is more focused on achieving and rewarding high levels of CFL collection AND recycling.

Recommendation 3

Create a closed loop for mercury supply and demand.

A closed loop system would help to ensure that mercury is always recycled and re-used, rather than thrown away or replaced.

The efficiency of the system would be further assisted if manufacturers were given access to recycled mercury and other materials, via open and transparent markets, and thereby incentivised to support waste reduction, collection and recycling.

Recommendation 4

Ban the use of new mercury.

A large amount of toxic mercury waste already exists, but the mercury contained by old televisions and other used household products is not always recycled.

Although the export of mercury from the EU is due to be banned, the Ban The Bulb campaign feels that the use of new (virgin) mercury within the EU also needs to be banned.

This would create a self-sustaining and cheap market for used mercury and reduce the amount of toxic waste being dumped in landfill.

Recommendation 5

Encourage investment with long-term contracts.

The Swedes issue 3 + 2 years recycling contracts (i.e. 5 years in duration), which encourage investment in simple, mechanical crushers and more complex and costly separators.

By comparison, recycling contracts in the UK tend to be renewed on an annual basis and this makes it less attractive to invest in highly quality recycling equipment and the processes needed to extract re-useable components and contaminants.

If we want recycling to improve we need to encourage investment and to extend the contracts offered in return for manufacturers, collectors and recyclers meeting tough performance criteria.

Recommendation 6

Develop collection boxes that separate and store different types of e-waste.

Most households will only ever generate small quantities of used CFLs or e-waste over months or even years.

It is never going to be economic to collect such small quantities of low-value waste, so new collections systems, in terms of container standards and collection regimes, are going to be required.

Mixing up different forms of waste increases handling costs and in the case of CFLs increases the risk of breakages and the accidental contamination of non-hazardous waste with hazardous waste.

One solution might be to encourage individual householders to collect several types of small e-waste at the same time using a compact, stackable box with different compartments.

In the Netherlands, a product called Jekko has come the closest to solving this set of problems.



Recommendation 7

Keep CFLs clean, dry and safe until collection.

CFLs need to be kept dry in order to prevent fluorescent powders sticking, mercury leaching away and/or contaminating other materials.

This might sound obvious and simple, but traditional systems are not very good at guaranteeing waste will stay clean, dry or safe from breakages and existing standards and norms cannot simply be applied to CFLs.

From the outset, the next generation of collection boxes should factor in keeping waste clean, dry and safe from the home through to recycling.

Recommendation 8

Team up with others.

Many people and organisations are keen to improve the quality of the users’ recycling experience and to increase the rates of recycling in several neglected categories of waste.

Groups supporting the recycling of CFLs, other small WEEE, batteries, cables, printer cartridges and chemicals need to explore ways of working together and tackling shared problems.

Recommendation 9

Innovate and Compete.

The answers to some of the problems facing CFL recycling cannot be guessed and innovative trials and approaches will be necessary if solutions are to be found.

As guiding principles those designing new solutions should aim 

(i) to create open and transparent relationships between all parties and 

(ii) to make decisions based on whether or not they will increase and/or improve recycling.

Examples of solutions worth exploring include creating currencies or certificates which only reward successful collection AND recycling.

At the moment valuable certificates are only created when waste is collected and not when it is recycled.

Both steps are crucial and need to be rewarded.

Field trials also need to incorporate the concerns of all stakeholders and to do so in ways that reward success.

Competitions could be used to identify practical solutions, such as the Jekko, and to award national and/or long-term contracts.

Recommendation 10

Standardise and Scale Up Success.

Best practice needs be proactively shared and rapidly scaled up.

In particular, the UK needs to examine the factors that have allowed Sweden and the Netherlands to succeed, and to be open to supporting new ideas and approaches.

This may mean creating supportive legislation, unlocking investment and adopting new working practices.

It is likely that those interested in the defending the dysfunctional status quo will also need to be tackled, made to compete for their existing roles and forced to dramatically improve their performance.

Conclusions

The recycling of CFLs, e-waste and other hazardous waste in the UK is a mess and needs to be sorted out.

By default, too much waste is being disposed of irresponsibly, via landfill, and it remains much too difficult for consumers to do the right thing via the dysfunctional and over-complicated recycling system, which they are currently expected to use.

At every step, care needs to be taken to ensure that the needs of manufacturers, retailers, consumers, collectors and recyclers are considered but that no one is allowed to cheat, ransom or otherwise undermine the market for recycled waste.

This will require the creation of clear, simple and fair rules that are focused on the goal of recycling 100% of waste and backed up by efficient and effective enforcement by the relevant government agencies. 

At present large amounts of e-waste are being sent to normal landfill sites in the UK, via general rubbish, or even to Africa for re-use and India for unsafe disposal.

Renewed efforts need to go into ensuring that all CFLs, other e-waste and hazardous waste can always be safely and efficiently disposed of properly in the UK and elsewhere. 

This means making it easier for well-intentioned consumers to do the right thing and harder for bad practice to go unchallenged.

The present system has evolved due to a lack of focus on the goal of recycling 100% of e-waste, such as CFLs, and a tendency to build ever more complicated and bureaucratic systems.

The Swedes and the Dutch have made their life a lot easier by showing great leadership and creating unified and standardised systems which are much more focused on achieving their primary goals and actually working under real-world conditions.

Looking the other way and pretending that e-waste and others forms of hazardous waste are not being disposed of irresponsibly is no longer an acceptable solution for policy makers.

We still have time to build better systems for the recycling of CFLs, as many will not need to be recycled before 2014, but we need to get a move on and to make good use of the time we still have.

At the same time, we might as well develop an integrated system for handling all of the other e-waste and hazardous waste, which can be similarly difficult to collect and dispose of properly.

Useful links:


Battery Recycling UK http://www.batteryrecycling-uk.co.uk
Recolight http://www.recolight.co.uk/




Tuesday, May 08, 2012


100% Recycling of Compact Fluorescent Lamps
Why 100% of domestic CFLs should be recycled...

The Ban The Bulb campaign is delighted that the phasing out domestic incandescent light bulbs across the EU is now almost complete; with the final 25W and 40W bans taking place in Sept 2012.

However, much remains to be done, especially when it come to ensuring that it is simple and normal for all used CFLs to be recycled.

Compact fluorescent lamps offer 60% energy savings compared to their incandescent equivalents and have become the cheap, mainstream energy-saving technology of choice, yet they still contain 1 - 5mg of mercury.

Mercury is a toxic substance so it is extremely important that it's always disposed of responsibly.

Until mercury-free, energy efficient alternatives such as LEDs (which use 90% less energy than their incandescent alternatives) take over, by falling further in price, new and universal recycling systems need to be put in place, which consistently ensure that 100% of CFLs can be quickly and easily recycled by everyone.

Countries such as Sweden manage to recycle 75% of their domestic CFLs (rising to 90% within their commercial sector) whilst other countries such as Bulgaria recycle 0% of their domestic CFLs (ref: Project EnERLIn, "Report on CFL Recycling Across Europe", 2008).



The Ban The Bulb campaign has called for the recycling of CFLs for many years (see Campaign Goal 4 on the top left of this website), so it is extremely frustrating that so little progress has been made in this important area.

The Ban The Bulb campaign would like to propose two possible solutions, which should either be implemented or bettered:

OPTION 1 would be the return of a small 5p or 5 cent deposit every time a CFL was handed in to a shop or recycling centre.

This system has worked exceptionally well in relation to incentivising the recycling of beer and/or soda bottles in many European countries and could similarly help to build a usable light bulb recycling system in countries instituting a ban.

OPTION 2 would be for cities, councils and countries to offer the doorstep recycling of CFLs. This option might be made possible through the use of specially designed boxes, which stored CFLs safely and could be collected at the same time as other recycled waste.

It is unacceptable that most people face no convenient options, other than to dispose of their used CFLs via general waste bins and thus landfill.

The quantities of mercury contained within each CFL are relatively small and safely contained within intact CFLs, but breakages within the present disposal system are inevitable and need to be addressed.

Over the next 2 - 4 years many millions of used CFLs will need to be disposed, as they come to the end of their useful lives, so before this happens it would be wise to put in place usable and accessible disposal systems for this waste.

In the UK, Recolight has done a highly commendable job of recycling CFLs, via retailers, but it remains the case that the majority of people are unaware of this system and/or not using it.

This means that new recycling systems, which reliably dispose of 100% of used CFLs need to be organised in the UK and every other country instituting a light bulb ban.

We still have time to act, but we now need to act without any further delay.

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Sunday, April 22, 2012


Philips launch LED alternative for 6OW on Earth Day
Ban The Bulb is pleased to read that Philips have launched a subsidised, energy efficient LED alternative to 60W domestic incandescent light bulbs, as their contribution to Earth Day 2012 in the US.

We are not convinced that $60 (£37) is particularly competitive compared to the rest of the LED market (ZetaLED will be offering their LifeBulb for £20 shortly), but still think that the intention of such a big company to bring down consumer prices is highly commendable.

via BBC News Online

US introduces $60 LED light bulb Philips LED bulb LED bulbs should last about 100,000 hours - giving them a life of about 20 years.

A prize-winning light bulb that lasts for 20 years is going on sale in the US on Sunday - also known as Earth Day.

Made by Dutch electronics giant Philips, the bulb swaps filaments for light-emitting diodes to provide illumination.

Using LEDs endows the light with a long life and a hefty price tag. The first versions are set to cost $60 (£37).

Philips has arranged discounts with shops that will sell the bulb meaning some could buy it for only $20 (£12).

Production ban

The bulb triumphed in the Bright Tomorrow competition run by the US Department of Energy that aimed to find an energy efficient alternative to the 60-watt incandescent light bulb.

The DoE challenged firms to develop a design that gave out a warm light similar to that from an incandescent bulbs but was much more energy efficient.

Philips was the only entrant for the competition and its design underwent 18 months of testing before being declared a winner.

A cheaper and less efficient version of the LED bulb is already sold by Philips in the US and Europe.

LED bulbs face competition from compact fluorescent lights which are almost as energy efficient and cost a lot less.

Sales of more energy efficient bulbs are being aided by official moves to end production of higher wattage incandescent bulbs.

Production of 100 watt bulbs has ceased in the US and Europe. Production of of 60 watt bulbs has been stopped in Europe and is being phased out in the US. From 2014, incandescent bulbs of 40 watts or above will be banned in the US.



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