![]() ![]() Simply, the process is not considered to be economically viable. ![]() It can cause severe damage to the central nervous system, the brain, and the spinal cord, resulting in blindness, cerebral palsy, deafness and mental retardation.Ī number of attempts have been made for large-scale recycling of linear and compact fluorescent lamps, but only with limited success. Methylmercury is particularly dangerous for unborn children and young infants. The conditions which are most conducive to the formation of metal mercury are low pH, oxygen free soil, and the presence of organic acids, conditions which are typical for most landfill situations and from which the compound can easily leach into the watertable, creeks and streams. This will accumulate in plant and animal tissues more readily than the metallic mercury or the organic mercury salts. Mercury deposits in landfill react with bacteria and produce this compound methylmercury, which readily dissolves in water. It is a nasty compound called methylmercury, sometimes known as quicksilver. However, there is a darker side to the mercury story. The combined annual sales of linear and compact lamps in Australia is about 17 million units. Typically a linear fluorescent lamp contains 15 milligrams of mercury, and a compact lamp between three and five milligrams of mercury. Both the linear fluorescent and the compact fluorescent lamps rely on a mercury discharge to excite the phosphor coating on the inside of the glass tube to produce light, whereas the incandescent lamp produces light by heating a tungsten wire filament. In 2009 the federal government banned the sale of incandescent lamps to encourage a much greater use of the twirly compact fluorescent lamps in the Australian domestic market. Kevin Poulton: The fluorescent lamp has been the most widely used electric light source in commercial and industrial buildings in Australia for more than half a century. But what about that other source of environmental mercury, those twirly lamps we are all required to use? This is Kevin Poulton who worked for many years in the lighting industry and lectured at RMIT University. Well, on Thursday the University of Michigan released research suggesting that the leakage of mercury from fillings may have been overestimated, and our risk may be less than some think. Robyn Williams: A couple of weeks ago on The Science Show we heard from a dentist concerned about mercury in teeth.
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