Friday, April 11, 2008

Dark Green

On the topic of things that really hack me off: the light bulb in my garage burned out a month ago, so I went to Lowes and got a new one. It was one of those twisty-type bulbs that have mercury in them which are so much better for the environment. Fine, I thought. I'll pay $5 for a $2 bulb and do my part to save some polar bear cub. But here's the trick--when you turn on the light, pretty much NOTHING HAPPENS. At least for a while. I swear, a family of fireflies gives off more light than one of these bulbs the first 3 minutes after you turn it on. Thereafter, it warms up nicely--which would be fine if this bulb were in my living room and was staying on for an hour after I hit the switch. But this is the garage. If I flip on the garage light at night, it's pretty much so I can walk out for 30 seconds and throw out the trash or retrieve something left in the car... all I want is to be able to see what I'm doing and not stub my toe. No chance of THAT anymore. Thanks, polar bears!

4 comments:

MichaelPolutta said...

You should NOT do any research on how "energy efficient" those bulbs are when taking the entire manufacturing process into account...

Or safety...

You might even be more dissatisfied.

bekster said...

I have heard bad things about their safety as well... I was quite shocked, actually.

We have those bulbs at home and I also get annoyed with how long it takes for them to come to an acceptable brightness. However, your situation sounds even worse. Maybe you can put the bulb on a timer so that it comes on in enough time before you get there to actually be helpful. (Or, you can just get one of the old bulbs again.) Whatever you do, just don't try to take out all of your frustrations on the bulb. The cleaning process is even more annoying.

I can't believe that manufacturers would release a product so inconvenient and dangerous. We can only hope that day they will see the light...

Goode Design said...

Mercury? yeah, totally safe in the environment. I brush my teeth with it.

They make LED light bulbs now... pretty darn bright too! They're on in a flash (pardon the pun.) i think a little company called CREE is top dawg with LED lighting.

Tommy said...

Die Earth, Die!