Good to know. I had no idea.

Oh come on. And if you do drop it, go put your best jammies on and lay down and wait for Jesus?

Are you fucknig kidding me? One of these broke just recently in my fucking apartment...

I love the "simple" cleanup process listed by the EPA and EnergyStar:

-Evacuate without passing through the area containing the broken bulb
-Shut off ventilation
-Open windows to vent mercury vapor
-Return after 15 minutes
-Wear protective clothing/gloves
-Scoop glass fragments into a glass jar or sealable plastic bag
-Use duct tape to cleanup powder from the bulb
-Wipe area with wet disposable towels and place inside glass jar/platic bag with used tape
-Seal and label jar as Hazardous
-Check with state government for disposal methods

Every bulb also contains roughly 4 milligrams of mercury. Good stuff. Most dumps won't take them because of it. One bulb most likely won't harm you, but it would definitely suck if you dropped a box of them. Apparently using a vaccum to clean it up will more efficiently make it airborne as well, so thats a no no. Its also worth noting that in controlled tests, CFL bulbs exceed federal mercury vapor exposure guidelines by roughly 100 times. I for one welcome our new mercury overlords.

Digg reports a New York Times article that Home Depot will recycle them.

And to think that as kids we'd break open thermometers so we could play with the mercury. Wonder how bad that was, really...

I've heard that the amount of mercury in a CFL is less than the amount that would have been released from a coal-fire plant to power an incandescent.

Wanna know what mercury does to you? Oh yes, it's bad.

http://www.videosift.com/video/How-Mercury-Causes-Neurodegeneration-Brain-Damage

*news

Adding video to channels (News) - requested by notarobot.