CFL: Life-cycle costs outway energy saving benfit?

Consumers in dark over risks of new light bulbs Push for energy-saving fluorescents ignores mercury disposal hazards Posted: April 16, 2007 1:00 a.m. Eastern By Joseph Farah © 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
WASHINGTON – Brandy Bridges heard the claims of government officials, environmentalists and retailers like Wal-Mart all pushing the idea of replacing incandescent light bulbs with energy-saving and money-saving compact fluorescent lamps. (WorldNetDaily)

An interesting counterpoint to the push for these new bulbs. It would seem that the grass is not always greener on the other side and there are a few issues that may be more important than the amount of energy they are supposed to save. Mercury is not a trivial metal to clean up, has been shown to be quite dangerous and as pointed out in this article, rather expensive to deal with when it gets loose in the house.

So, maybe we need a study of the full-life cycle costs of these new bulbs, because you know that 90% of them are going to wind up in the trash.