I wonder if anyone has considered that the compact fluorescent lamps themselves are not very "earth friendly" - they contain mercury and circuit boards with solder and electronic components. Hmmm........
The mercury in a CFL can be recycled, and many municipalities have already invested in the vacuum equipment to do this. But even if the user throws the old bulb in the trash, it releases less mercury into the environment than an incandescent, nearly anywhere in North America and most other parts of the world.
Why? Because coal power plants release mercury into the air. The amount of mercury emissions prevented by the CFL turns out to be
more mercury than the amount contained by the bulb itself. As for the comment about CFLs using much more energy to manufacture, I doubt it. The most energy-intensive part is forming the glass, which shouldn't take a lot more energy than forming the glass of an incandescent.
What they are is more labor-intensive. Those spirals, I've heard, have to be formed by hand.
