Hooray! I no longer have to save my burned out/broken CFL bulbs in a bucket in my laundry room! Home Depot has announced that it will now collect UNBROKEN, no longer usable CFL bulbs for safe disposal at all of their stores nationwide (all 1,973 of them). You can read the press release here. Ikea also accepts CFL bulbs for recycling, but there is no Ikea anywhere near little Grand Junction, sadly.
This is a huge step toward responsibly managing the mercury that is present in CFL bulbs. Though there is only a small amount of mercury in each bulb, because of the huge popularity of CFLs recently, we would soon be faced with an environmental hazard if everyone simply tossed them in the garbage.
Please remember that you cannot bring in broken bulbs to the Home Depot - that would pose a safety hazard! If you break a CFL, use the same precautions that your high school chemistry teacher (hopefully) used when your clumsy lab partner (that was me, actually) dropped a thermometer and broke it. Don some gloves, sweep the mess into a sealed container, and take it your local hazardous waste disposal center.
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