By Cory Carroll
How many light bulbs do you have to replace to help the world?
Osram Sylvania unveiled the Sylvania micro-mini Twist at the annual Light Congress in New York City on Earth Day. The Twist is currently the smallest CFL (compact fluorescent light bulb) on the market. Sylvania’s bulb is a replacement for incandescent light bulbs regularly used in consumers’ homes and one of the initiatives for a creating a more eco-friendly environment.
The Twist is the newest product in Sylvania’s Ecologic line of environmentally friendly lighting products and part of the growing trend of creating eco-friendly lighting. According to Bob Ponzini, commercial engineer at Osram Sylvania, the current trend is to make “efficient, longer-life products that minimize hazardous materials going into the light,” and to help minimize “manufacture packaging.”
The Twist (available at local hardware and grocery stores as a 2-pack for $9.99), for example, can be used to replace 60, 75, or 100-watt (W) incandescent light bulbs without compromising the light’s functionality. This product is 30 percent smaller than a standard CFL and can last for about 11 years. In contrast, a standard 75-watt clear incandescent light bulb has an average life span of about 63 days.
While Ponzini says there is “no perfect light source,” he says the goal of Sylvania and their products is “to be at the forefront to meet the needs of customers and legislation.”
Sylvania has also been working to decrease hazardous materials in the bulbs, like mercury and lead. While mercury, for example, cannot completely be eliminated from lighting systems because it increases the efficiency of the lamps, Sylvania has “reduced the amount of mercury used in many of [their] lamps by up to 92 percent” (according to Sylvania’s “A Guide to Sustainable Lighting Sources”).
In addition to improving efficiency and removing harmful products, Osram Sylvania has changed the packaging of their products. “Space is key for packaging,” says Ponzini. By packaging more efficiently and minimizing space used, Sylvania has looked beyond their products for innovative ways to conserve resources. “The more lamps in a truck cuts down on diesel fuel for trucks to transport,” says Ponzini. In addition, as more lamps can be transported, fewer trucks are needed to transfer the product.
Helping to unveil the Twist was “Gossip Girl” actress Kelly Rutherford. In a press release Rutherford says, “I replaced a number of the incandescent light bulbs in my house with the Sylvania micro-mini CFL and now I won’t have to think about them for another decade!” Rutherford is one of many eco-conscious celebrities, including Cameron Diaz and Leonardo DiCaprio, working to bring awareness on how to go green.
On the horizon for the development of energy efficient lighting is the possibility of the European Union’s (EU) Directive RoHS being placed in effect in the United States, according to Greg McCord, Sylvania’s application engineer. RoHS stands for “the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment” (rohs.gov.uk) and became effective on July 1, 2006 in the EU. This Directive is based on corporate and residential compliances dealing with “disposal factors” and “a change in the manufacturing process that has no lead or mercury base,” says McCord. The RoHS Directive is just beginning to come into effect in parts of the U.S., including “California RoHS” which began on January 1, 2007.
In addition to the creation of eco-friendly products, the global green initiative is being put to use by companies, universities, and personal consumers across the U.S.
The New 42nd Street in NYC, for example, recently finished energy efficient plans that were devised in 2003. The New 42nd Street includes the New 42nd Street Studios, a state-of-the-art, ten-story building of performing arts rehearsal space, and The New Victory Theater on 42nd Street. Working with grants from NYSERDA (New York State Energy Research and Development Authority) and Con Edison, the New 42nd Streets’ director of production, Dave Jensen, and director of facilities, Benno Van Noort, began with changes to the studio building’s façade.
According to Jensen, “The façade cost about $60,000 a year to light.” Jensen says he “came up with the idea to work with the new technology to balance the new power units in the façade” and replaced the existing lights with LED (colored lighting found in traffic signals). With this change, the façade’s “usage dropped 95% without any change in the artistic fixture,” says Jensen, and “after six years the cost of the work on the façade will pay back.”
At the university setting, NYC’s New York University has developed a campus-wide sustainability task force and recycling department, ranks as the largest university buyer of wind energy in the U.S. and created a cogeneration power plant project. According to Jonah “Cecil” Scheib, director of Energy and Sustainability at NYU, the school “works in conjunction with NYSERDA for rebate and funding opportunities whenever possible.” While the costs of the programs initiated vary, he says “paybacks can be as short as 4-6 weeks (for instance, the replacement in dorms of incandescent bulbs with CFL) or as long as 2-5 years for more expensive projects.”
From a university that covers “over 5 million square feet of interior space” (according to NYU’s official site) to a one-bedroom apartment in the Bronx, individuals are recognizing the benefits of energy efficiency too.
Marcus Lofthouse, a dual resident of a studio in Manhattan’s Financial District and a one-bedroom apartment in the Bronx neighborhood Highbridge, brought lessons he learned from his alma mater, Oberlin College in Ohio, to the Big Apple. Since moving to NYC in 2005, Lofthouse says he “replaced all of the lighting in the main area of the studio with energy efficient bulbs and lamps.” With the simple changes he made (some in lamps he purchased in Ohio), he says, “Some of the bulbs I have only replaced once in five years.”
Further down south in Auburn, Alabama, Kristen Murphy says she implemented changes around her home over a year ago beginning with all of the canister lights in her kitchen. Murphy says she and her husband, John, are very conservative, and she learned about the eco-friendly effects of changing their lighting from their neighbor who is in charge of green projects at the University of Auburn.
Regardless of whether a celebrity or an eco-conscious neighbor galvanizes you, or whether you change a light bulb or create one, each person involved is helping to conserve energy and protect the troubled planet. By switching to eco-friendly light bulbs, you can save energy and money. So how many light bulbs do you have to replace to help the world? The answer: one.
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Most CFLs today on the market contain less than 5mgs of mercury and there are CFL options out there that contain as little as 1.5mgs of mercury- which can hardly be called a “significant amounts of mercury” considering that many item in your home contain 100s of times more of mercury including your computer. Mercury levels in CFLs can never be “nonexistent” since mercury is a necessary component of a CFL and there is no other known element that is capable of replacing it. But CFLs actually prevent more mercury from entering the environment. According to the Union of Concerned Scientist, “a coal-fired power plant will emit about four times more mercury to keep an incandescent bulb glowing, compared with a CFL of the same light output”.
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