Bulb makers asked to clean up lamp wastes

LIGHTING bulbs are now to return from where they came from.

The Department of Energy now wants the producers of lamps and bulbs to take responsibility for the environmental and health impacts of their products throughout their life cycle. “True, we have switched from inefficient incandescent bulbs to efficient lighting systems such as compact fluorescent lamps [CFLs]. But it comes with a price—mercury is an integral component of CFLs. And mercury, if not properly disposed of, poses health hazards to humankind and the environment,” said Energy department Undersecretary Loreta Ayson.

Figures from Philippine Efficient Lighting Market Transformation Project (PELMATP) show that 88 percent of households and 77 percent of commercial establishments surveyed disposed of their used bulbs just like any other wastes.

According to two environmental laws in the country—the Toxic Substances and Hazardous and Nuclear Wastes Control Act and the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act—lighting bulbs are lamp waste that requires special handling because of the toxic mercury in them.

But green group EcoWaste Coalition said that used and burnt-out lamps just end up in dump sites or junk shops where recyclers are exposed from mercury, a silver heavy metal that can permanently damage the brain and nervous system.

The Energy department, through the PELMATP, wants the extended producer responsibility (EPR) to take root, wherein bulb manufacturers are tasked to retrieve used bulbs for its proper disposal.

This means that producers of fluorescent lamps and even CFLs will be “in charge of the collection, processing and reclamation of their products when they are no longer useful or discarded,” said Thony Dizon of the EcoWaste Coalition.

“At present, there is no safe system for managing end-of-life lamps, which are often thrown into regular bins and sent to disposal sites where these are dumped, burned or recycled in unsafe conditions,” Dizon added.

Among others, the department said that EPR can be done by collecting used bulbs at retail outlets or requiring retailers to take back lamp wastes every time they sell one item.

For now, the Energy department commissioned the International Institute for Energy Conservation and Innogy Solutions Inc. to conduct the EPR’s feasibility and policy study.

EcoWaste and the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) said that with EPR policy in place, the deleterious impacts of improper disposal of lamps can be avoided.

“We envision a robust EPR that will impose lower levels of mercury in CFLs imported into the country, uphold consumer right to full product and safety information, internalize the environmental costs, and operate an environmentally sound system for managing spent lamps, including a collection scheme that is easy for the public to access,” said Manny Calonzo, co-coordinator of GAIA. –JOHN CONSTANTINE CORDON, Manila Times