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Kevin BegleyManagement of Mercury in Lighting Products Environmental Consultant, Sweden Torbjörn Linderson Stockholm University, Sweden Abstract Mercury pollution is a serious environmental problem in industrialized countries. One source of this pollution is discarded lighting products which contain mercury. In a world trying to cleanse itself from mercury excess, questions have been raised concerning the environmental impact of the increasing use of these lamps. Due to technical improvements, the mercury content within each lamp has been reduced by over 50% during the last 20 years in Western Europe. Extended lamp life has provided a further reduction in mercury per lumen-hour. This trend should continue with the application of developed technology in commercially available lamps, as well as probable further technological breakthroughs. As with nearly any sort of waste problem, pollution prevention needs to be the keystones of any program to deal with mercury from lighting products. Enacting lamp policies to limit mercury content, encourage further reductions, classifying the mercury in lighting products as the hazardous waste it is, and requiring proper recycling of this mercury would all be positive actions in a program for reducing the impact of mercury on the environment. Furthermore, using creative solutions concerning lighting systems can reduce electricity usage and the number of lamps needed. Although lighting products are a minor source of mercury emission sources, they need to be seriously addressed in order to avoiding aggravating already serious mercury accumulation problems. In regions using fossil fuels or uranium to generate electricity, there is a clear incentive to invest in energy efficient lighting with low mercury content. For example, if conserved electricity results in a reduction of coal use, there would be a net decrease in mercury emissions, even with release of the mercury contained in these lamps. Obviously, a reduction in coal combustion would provide many other environmental benefits as well. Although the article is international in scope, the main country of reference is Sweden due in part to the relatively large quantities of mercury being recycled from lamps.
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