Technology is great. With so many new products coming at us, it seems easy to dispose of old technologies without much haste, especially with the latest environmental friendly "green movement." However, we should probably be checking out the long reaching affects of the latest and greatest. Apropos to lighting, LED bulbs and CFL bulbs have been touted as the most environmentally friendly way to light your home. While CFL bulbs are known to contain harmful chemicals such as mercury a new study by UC Irving suggests that LED products are just as eco-unfriendly when they inevitably end up in a landfill.
"Those light-emitting diodes marketed as safe, environmentally preferable alternatives to traditional lightbulbs actually contain lead, arsenic and a dozen other potentially hazardous substances."Makers of LEDs could easily reduce chemical concentrations and redesign products with safer materials, however state regulations which would have required higher safety was opposed by industry groups and a less stringent version was substituted. Personally, the best way to combat this is by reverting to our tradition tungsten bulbs. If we continue to support LEDs and CFLs what we may be gaining in short term energy efficiency may not be worth the long term payback.
This is very interesting in the fact that, although this light bulbs are meant to be eco friendly, they're actually going to end up hurting our environment. In my opinion, I have to agree with you about resorting back to our old lights. Although they do take up a lot of energy, the new way is just bringing in more problems after pushing out the old. Either way, we're hurting our planet. We need to keep progressing in an attempt to find something that may actually change the world and protect the environment without any harmful effects.
ReplyDeleteIt is funny that we don't hear about this side of the LEDs and CFLs. All we hear is how eco-friendly they are but like Nathan said, it will hurt our environment in the long run.I think the public should know about these effects more. I don't really know if we should switch back to our old bulbs until we find a better solution because if we do, we will be throwing out the new harmful ones into the environment and wasting material to make the old ones again.
ReplyDeleteI find it ironic that the bulbs environmentalist have been pushing so hard for turn around to be causing more damage than they fix. Maybe those of us that "destroy the earth" are actually doing the planet some good.
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