May 19th, 2011

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

You’d think that new light bulb efficiency standards would be a pretty basic matter. Light bulbs, after all, didn’t change much for more than 100 years. At home, we used the classic household incandescent. At work, we toiled under rows of tubular fluorescent lights.

Astronauts blasted off to the moon. The Internet revolutionized communication. Light bulbs stayed the same.

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May 17th, 2011

Challenged to make more efficient light bulbs — by a law that some in Congress want to repeal — American industry has responded with gusto.

Philips, Osram Sylvania and Cree have all said: Let there be light!

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September 29th, 2010

Recycling in earnest can make a person crazy. Maybe you’ve got curbside pick up for plastic bottles and newspapers. But what about batteries, cell phones, CFL light bulbs, printer ink cartridges, cardboard boxes and old computers? These harder-to-recycle items often comprise the clutter in our garages and mud rooms as they wait patiently for someone to haul them to the appropriate place.
Lowe’s stores are trying to make that task a little easier. The home improvement chain announced today that it has installed 1,700 recycling centers in nearly 1,700 stores across the U.S. that will collect and recycle rechargeable batteries, cell phones, unbroken CFLs and plastic shopping bags.

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June 18th, 2010

Trash. Turns out no one wants it. This week, the U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM) adopted a resolution that attempts to heave off some of the crushing load of waste that American consumers and manufacturers are generating.

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January 28th, 2009

By John DeFore
Green Right Now

One of the legitimate gripes about compact fluorescent light bulbs is that they contain a small amount of the toxic substance mercury. But what if regular incandescent bulbs, which are usually handled with no special care, contained hazardous materials as well?

Turns out they may, according to a new story in Chemical & Engineering News that raises concerns about tungsten — which isn’t only used for light bulb filament but may be hanging around your neck as you read this, as an ingredient in jewelry.

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June 26th, 2008

By John DeFore Big American retailers like Wal-Mart and Home Depot have been embracing compact fluorescent light bulbs for a while now, but some customers who read the fine print have been peeved that, since they contain mercury, the twisty little energy-saving bulbs are easier to buy than to dispose of properly. This week, Home [...]

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