There are a lot of green products that do exactly what they claim to do and save both money and the environment. CFL’s are far from perfect but in my opinion, you have to start somewhere. Yes, they contain mercury and should be discarded properly – this can be accelerated by more active educating of consumers. LED technology is proceeding along nicely and the price is becoming affordable more every year.

With green cleaning products – there are plenty of products who work just fine and perform their duties well. Where they may have a little more of a challenge is that not all products work well with hard water. This may take a little trial and error on the part of the consumer.

I strongly recommend that consumers take a look at the company who produce the green product they are interested in to see if the company walks the talk. Do they really believe in ‘green’ to the core? Do they subscribe to the Triple Bottom Line (People, Planet, Profit) or are they just trying to make a quick buck. Consumers are smart – and they have the power to send very strong signals with their dollar.

Now, take into consideration the highest source of mercury in our air comes from burning fossil fuels such as coal. The most common fuel used to create electricity. A CFL uses 75% less energy than an incandescent and lasts 6 times longer. A power plant produces about 10mg of mercury to light an incandescent bulb, whereas it will produce about 2.4 mg of mercury to run a CFL. If you take into consideration that the average CFL contains about 3 mg of mercury. Well, you can do the math, a CFL emits half the amount of mercury over its lifetime than an incandescent.

As far as recycling, we are well on our way. More and more states require the recycling of mercury containing products like Massachusetts. Companies such as Home Depot, Ikea and soon Lowes will all have recycling drop spots. Don’t want to leave your house? Veolia or Waste Management offer recycling boxes you can store your bulbs in and mail to them when full. Want even more information http://www.lamprecycle.org or http://www.epa.gov/bulbrecycling.

CFL’s are definitely green and have definitely saved money on my electric bill. Are they perfect? Not yet, but they are getting there and almost every spot in my home has its socket filled with one. They produce great light and offer options from soft white (very incandescent like) to daylight. Dimming options have not been perfected yet so I am waiting for that hurdle to be crossed.