Raising awareness of recycling CFLs

Date: 31/3/2011

We recently conducted some research with the Lighting Industry Federation and the Lighting Association which has shown that it is more important than ever to be raising awareness of the importance of recycling low-energy light bulbs amongst consumers. In the survey only 18 per cent of consumers said they were aware that low-energy light bulbs, also known as CFLs, need to be recycled. When asked what they thought they would do when their old low-energy light bulbs reached end-of-life a worrying 69 per cent said they would throw them away in the normal household waste.

The survey also revealed that nearly 8 out of 10 homes (78%) have at least one operating low-energy light bulb in place, and that 29% no longer have any old style incandescents at all. In total, the research shows that there are approximately 133 million low-energy light bulbs currently in use in homes across the UK and the presence of incandescent light bulbs has almost halved in the last three years.  This is very positive, and shows the extent of take up of energy saving alternatives.

However, with awareness levels of the need to recycle still so low there is clearly a lot of work to be done to ensure that low-energy light bulbs are recycled properly and not thrown away with the everyday household waste.  Unlike other larger electrical items such as white goods and televisions, it would be all too easy for these light bulbs to end up in the normal waste.  Our schools education programme is just one of the initiatives we have undertaken to help raise awareness of the issue, and the programme has now reached half a million school children across the country – if you haven’t seen it do have a look at www.biglightproject.com.  The number of low-energy light bulbs reaching end of life is still very low.  We are rapidly increasing the size and visibility of our network of consumer recycling points  so that when the numbers of light bulbs reaching end of life increases in 2-3 years’ time, there will be much more awareness of the need to recycle.

 

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