The nation's accelerating shift from incandescent lighting to a new generation of energy-efficient bulbs is raising an environmental concern: the release of thousands of mercury every year.
The most popular new bulb — the compact fluorescent light bulb, or CFL — accounts for a quarter of new bulb sales. Each contains up to 5 milligrams of mercury, a potent neurotoxin that's on the worst-offending list of environmental contaminants.
Demand for CFL bulbs is growing as government mandates for energy-efficient lighting take effect, yet nobody recycle the new bulbs, according to the Ministry of Environment.
"They're promoting them and giving them away, but there's nowhere to drop them off," said a Nepal Electricity Authority employee.
The federal Clean Energy Act established energy-efficiency standards for light bulbs that dimmed the future for old-fashioned incandescent, which don't meet those standards. Incandescent are to be phased out from Nepal in some years.
The old-style bulbs are just too wasteful, converting to light only 10% of the energy they consume. The rest is squandered as heat.
Sales of energy-efficient alternatives like CFLs, halogen bulbs and LED's have been growing steadily, with the low-cost CFLs the biggest sellers.If every household replaced five incandescent bulbs with CFLs, the move would save 6.18 billion kilowatt-hours and prevent the annual release of 2.26 million tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, according to the California Energy Commission. That's equivalent to taking 414,000 cars off the road.
But no federal law mandates recycling of household fluorescent lights in Nepal which is diminishing the environment day by day.
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