EcoHolics Anonymous: Breaking Up With Thomas Edison Is A Hard Thing To Do

The other day I heard an NPR piece that incandescent light bulbs are set to be banned. My heart palpitated and all I thought was, "Nooooo!! What will I do about the bathroom?!??" Rest assured, this is not true. Incandescent light bulbs will be more energy efficient in compliance with the law signed by George Bush a couple of years ago. I guess Republicans - such as Rush Limbaugh - are railing against this. In some respects, I must say I have to agree that the market should decide if a product will live or fail. My utopia would be that all consumers were educated and eco-conscious for the greater good. (Greater Good: if every American home replaced just one light bulb with an Energy Star qualified bulb, we would save enough energy to light more than three million homes per annum, more than $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars.) Consumers would adopt products that would trigger improved technology, manufacturing efficiencies, and price reduction. Eventually, this adoption would cause other products to die and there would be no need for legislation or wasteful spending on evil, non-ecofriendly lobbyists. So, I guess legislation is needed. But I digress...

My man, Teddy.

Anyway, don't get me wrong; I did attempt to use compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL) in the bathroom vanity back in 2005 but their illumination made me look so sallow I would walk around depressed all day. I quickly changed them out. In fact, I stayed at my sister's for two days in 2006 and changed out all of the foyer's and dining room's CFL's because I couldn't handle it. Since then, I have noticed that CFL's have improved with better lighting options such as natural light, soft white, white white, etc. and now they are in every possible socket in my house except for the bathroom vanity. So, the question remained, "Could I give up my incandescents in the bathroom?" I had to look into this.

I started researching online and found a straightforward and honest company named Environmental Lights, which specializes in LED (light-emitting diodes) light bulbs.  I called them up and spoke with Greg who first asked me, "What do light bulbs have to do with poop bags?"

Anyway, he said that CFL's suffer from some of the worst marketing as he estimated market penetration is only 8 percent. He is super close. Actual household socket penetration was only 11 percent of all potential sockets according to a 2009 US Department of Energy report. This got me thinking that people unadopted CFL's - just like I did - due to the poor light quality and have decided not to venture down that road again. Greg told me that the reason CFL's were so awful back in the day was because of the phosphorus. He assured me that the quality of phosphorus used has improved with a caveat: you need to pay more for quality CFL's. Overall, you reap lower electricity bills (like $40/bulb) which offsets the cost of the bulb, are doing a little bit of good for the environment, and can still look great. Of course, the marketers haven't started the necessary campaign to alert the public of the phosphorus advances, so Greg is dead-on on that count, too. We can then tie that back into why legislation is needed. Anyhow...

Greg also mentioned the downside that CFL's bring. They have trace amounts of mercury which means you have to dispose of them at a hazardous waste materials site - another thing to add to the long "to do" list. OOF!

You are probably wondering why Environmental Light Greg extols the benefits of the CFL's if he doesn't sell them? Well, he sells something even better: LED light bulbs. LED's are more energy efficient light bulbs  and do not contain mercury. LED 's can produce light twice as efficiently - in warmer, more eye-pleasing colors - than today's compact fluorescents and last up to five times longer.

Here are some of the fantastic features and applications of LED light bulbs:
•     Extremely low power consumption
•     Very efficacious-convert energy to light, not heat
•     Extremely long life span (50,000-100,000 hours)
•     Durable, insensitive to vibration
•     Dimmable and programmable, in many cases
•     Super-fast turn-on, unlike compact fluorescents
•     Lightweight and compact
•     Color, without the use of filters and lenses
•     No reflectors are required to direct the light
•     Very environmentally friendly—no mercury or other toxics
•     Recyclable

Accent lighting:
Programmable color changing, underwater applications, tiles, strings, ropes and tubes are all easier with LED’s. LED landscape lighting provides innovative colors, compact designs and increasingly effective solar-powered solutions that do not require underground cabling.

Task lighting:
Reading lamps, portable work lights, flashlights, wearable head lamps—LED’s are compact, lightweight and highly directional. (Wait a minute? Did they say something about flashlights? Well, what do you know? The PupLights PoopBags.com sells are LED's!)

Area lighting:
LED’s are increasingly competitive for illuminating larger spaces. However, LED’s are not yet effective for illuminating large halls, parking lots, streets and the like. Use care in selecting LED’s for area lighting.

Visit the Energy Star website for the best possible LED application images. You know what, also visit Environmental Lights to find out more. By the way, they are an Energy Star Partner.

At PoopBags, we hope LED's will rise and eclipse the rest.

Excuse me while I go replace the burned out incandescent in my vanity with a more energy efficient light bulb. 

Paige::PoopBags, Inc.