Shining with toxic light

An environmental and health crisis may be brewing as a massive 2008 government drive to encourage the purchase of energy-efficient light bulbs via subsidies is now beginning to have unintended consequences.

Around 100 million bulbs are now reaching the end of their life span and experts have pointed out that recycling and disposal channels are unprepared for the massive surge in demand.

Zhao Zhangyuan, a researcher with the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, told the Global Times that if the situation is mishandled, those energy-efficient bulbs will put the environment at risk, which would only be the first of many repercussions.

"A bulb like this contains 0.5 milligrams of mercury on average, and this sliver is enough to pollute 180 tons of underground water and soil combined," Zhao said.

A hidden danger

"People have little awareness of the possible harm they pose, and most of them throw the bulbs away with other garbage, which is usually buried without recycling," Han Xiaoping, deputy head of energy website china5e.com, told the Global Times.

Once the underground water and soil are polluted by the heavy metals that have leaked from the bulbs, food chains and then the human body are at risk, Zhao Zhangyuan said, adding that the people's central nervous systems would be damaged, along with increases in heart diseases, brain disorders and depression.

Despite the country's recognition of these bulbs as potential toxic waste materials, facilities to process them remain inadequate for demand.

In Shandong Province alone, less than 1 percent of the expired energy-efficient bulbs are properly treated, an engineer surnamed Gao with Qingdao New World, a waste recovery company, was quoted by the Peninsula City News as saying.

Song Zhiliang, 37, founder of an NGO based in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, which deals with garbage classification, who also sold energy-efficient bulbs in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province from 2009 to 2010, told the Global Times he could not find a department responsible for collecting and dealing with used energy-efficient bulbs during his five years of experience dealing with garbage classification.

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