Grahamstown is sitting on a toxic time bomb. Karlien van der Wielen and Kirana Parusnath report.
Grahamstown is sitting on a toxic time bomb. Karlien van der Wielen and Kirana Parusnath report.
More than 43.5 million compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) were distributed throughout South Africa between 2004 and 2010 and in those six years, national power utility Eskom saved 1800MW of electricity, according to the International Marketing Council of South Africa on its website, BrandSouthAfrica.com.
Householders all over South Africa, including in Grahamstown, flocked to swap their old tungsten incandescents for the free energy-saving globes, as part of Eskom's National Efficient Lighting Programme. It was one of the easiest ways for a home to become more energy efficient and save money into the bargain.
But that energy efficiency had a downside. The 5mg mercury contained in CFLs officially put the product into the hazardous waste category, which meant they couldn’t just be thrown away with regular garbage. To address this, Eskom, as part of its exchange drive, not only swapped tungsten for fluorescent, but also accepted old CFLs to be appropriately disposed of.
Exchange and disposal points included shopping centres. In Grahamstown, the Pick n Pay at Pepper grove mall offered this service. But when Eskom's campaign came to an end last August, Grahamstown residents were left in the dark, with neither Pick n Pay or the local branch of Eskom accepting dud CFLs.
A glance at the website http://globalcarbonexchange.co.za/ shows that in South Africa's three main centres, Woolworths stores are listed as depots for the disposal of hazardous waste. But for Grahamstown residents, the nearest hazardous waste disposal facility is in Port Elizabeth. And a local environmental activist has sounded the alarm, as residents apparently resort to simply tossing the old CFLs into their regular garbage.
“The problem is when large amounts accumulate,” said Nikki Köhly, green activist and the Safety, Health and Environmental officer at Rhodes University. “So if everyone just threw away their fluorescent light bulbs, and these all lay around in the landfill site, the mercury in them could gradually seep into the environment.”
Mercury is a strong neurotoxin that can damage internal organs and the reproductive systems of animals. Mercury contamination builds as it travels up the food chain. This means that by the time a person eats a mercury-contaminated fish, that person is in danger of severe mercury poisoning.
The mercury posed a risk only when the bulb was broken, Köhly said.If a number of broken bulbs accumulated in regular landfills, however, the implications could be serious.
Manager of Pick n Pay at Pepper Grove mall, Jon Campbell, told Grocott's Mail last week that the store would have liked to continue the programme, but lacked the resources to responsibly dispose of the CFLs. The store no longer accepted them because they couldn't safely transport them to Port Elizabeth.
“Pick n Pay wants to support greening, but the refuse must be disposed of in a safe and responsible manner,” said Campbell.“ A row that erupted in Britain earlier this year over the disposal of CFLs highlights just how serious the issue is.
In March, Unison, the union that represents rubbish collectors in Britain, protested that they faced too many risks as a result of having to collect CFLs along with regular domestic waste. Citing the UK’s Health Protection Agency advice for householders to evacuate the room and leave it to ventilate for 15 minutes after a CFL has broken, they declared they would no longer pick up the bulbs .
Meanwhile, Köhly says, until there's an alternative, the safest way for Grahamstown residents to dispose of the CFLs is to seal the bulbs in a glass jar, or in a double layer of plastic, and dispose of them with their regular waste.
