论文部分内容阅读
Zhang Hong is a program director at the Global Village of Beijing， an established environmental NGO. Zhang’s organization has carried out a program of promoting the replacement of incandescent lamps with energy-efficient compact fluorescent lamps（CFLs） since 2006. When Zhang realized that the mercury residue in the “greener” fixtures might make a mess of the environment， he began to include the safe disposal of spent lamps into his lectures.
However， as there is no CFL-disposal service available in residential communities in Beijing， Zhang suggested storage of burned out lamps to his audience since intact CFLs will hold their mercury indefinitely. He himself once stored more than 20 fluorescent lamps in a corner of his office before sending them to a hazardous waste recycling center.
Zhang has also persuaded company sponsors of his organization’s CFL promotion campaign into donating money to educating the public on reducing mercury pollution.
Under a three-year program launched by the Chinese Government in 2008， individual purchasers of CFLs manufactured by companies winning government bids enjoyed a 50-percent discount and organizational purchasers enjoyed 30-percent subsidies. The program set a goal of promoting the use of 150 million energysaving lighting products nationwide， which could reduce pollution by 29 million tons of carbon dioxide and 290，000 tons of sulfur dioxide every year. By the end of 2011， the program had subsidized the purchase of 500 million CFLs nationwide.
Despite the program’s enormous success in energy conservation， people are now concerned that the mercury in the expired lamps is not kept out of landfills and incinerators. Jiefang Daily， a Shanghai-based newspaper， reported on December 6， 2012， that more than 100 million CFLs in China were reaching the end of their lifespans.
Unlike LED and incandescent lamps， CFLs contain mercury. No mercury is released when the bulbs are intact or in use， but if the bulb breaks， as much as 5 mg of mercury may be released.
Although 5 mg—around the size of the tip of a ballpoint pen—is a tiny amount when compared to the 1 to 3 grams in a mercury thermometer， the vast number of spent lamps can accumulate into a major source of severe pollution.
Scientists have confirmed that the mercury in a CFL can pollute more than 100 tons of water and the surrounding soil after it reaches a landfill， where bacteria convert it to far more toxic organic mercury compounds such as methyl mercury， which can be absorbed through skin or mucous membranes. Improper disposal of CFLs in landfills or incinerators may also release mercury vapor into the atmosphere.
According to the China Association of Lighting Industry， China produced around 4.7 billion CFLs in total in 2011 and 1.8 billion of them stayed in China. If every lamp contains 5 mg of mercury on average， without proper disposals， lamps consumed in China would release a total of 95 tons of mercury， which could stay in the atmosphere for up to one year and travel around the globe.
An ignored issue
The first step of processing CFLs involves crushing the bulbs in a machine that uses negative pressure ventilation and a mercuryabsorbing filter or cold trap to contain mercury vapor. The crushed glass and metal are stored in drums， ready for shipping to recycling factories.
Many municipalities and provinces on the Chinese mainland have purchased such machines. But underutilization is common among CFL recycling facilities nationwide， reported China Youth Daily.
Even in Beijing， which has the earliest recycling program for CFLs among Chinese cities， still only a small proportion of burned out lamps are disposed of as hazardous waste. The Beijing Hazardous Waste Disposal Center has the city’s only machine to dispose of waste CFLs， which was put into operation in 2008. An anonymous technician from the company told Beijing Review that although the Sweden-made machine could recycle up to 1，500 CFLs per hour and the government subsidizes the center 1 yuan （$0.16） per lamp， it is left idle many days a year， as only a small number of organizations and virtually no individuals bring spent lamps.
Unlike in many other countries， the presence of mercury in fluorescent lights is neither well known nor well communicated to the Chinese public. Special handling instructions for breakage are not printed on the packaging of household CFL bulbs.
Although mercury-containing bulbs were put on a national list of hazardous waste as early as 2008， the sixth article of the list says that households are exempt from the ordinary hazardous waste regulations； so CFLs may legally be disposed as normal household trash.
The Beijing Hazardous Waste Disposal Center disposes of 2 million CFLs a year， more than 50 percent of which are from a compulsory government collection program from public institutions， while the rest are mainly defective products from lamp manufacturers. “We hope to sign disposal contracts with more companies and public institutions. However， due to their reluctance to pay disposal fees， we have only signed such contracts with around 200 companies，” said Wang Dongjian， deputy director of the center.
An anonymous marketing executive from the center told China Youth Daily that when they contacted companies to collect retired tubes， people on the other side of the telephone were often stunned to know that they are supposed to pay the center for the disposal instead of the other way round.
Wang said that his center charges less than 8 yuan （$1.29） for disposing of 1 kg of waste fluorescent lamps and the pricing is not even profitable if depreciation and maintenance of the machine and costs of transportation of the lamps are taken into consideration.
“As mercury is the only mobile heavy metal pollutant， mercury contamination could exert heavy costs on the environment and should be prevented as early as possible，” Wang said.
No service providers
Philips Lighting， the largest player in the global lighting market， does not provide individual consumers with service or direction on disposal of their retired CFL products in China. Lighting products retailers， including Ikea， do not offer CFL-return programs in China either.
Li Yan， an associate professor at the School of Environment and Natural Resources of the Beijing-based Renmin University of China， has been studying mercury pollution caused by CFLs since 2007. Li said that the public is illeducated on possible mercury pollution caused by leaving CFLs in the trash. For example， the government of Xiamen in southeast China’s Fujian Province installed bins for spent fluorescent lamps in 2008， which were in service only briefly as they were often mistaken by residents as regular dustbins.
Many economists in China believe that it is impractical to ask CFL consumers to pay for safe disposal of retired products. According to a survey conducted by China Youth Daily on supermarket shoppers， they believe that manufacturers and importers have an obligation to collect and recycle CFLs as the retail price includes an amount to pay for recycling.
However， lighting industry associations say that it is unfair for producers to bear this burden alone. The Beijing Lighting Industry Association once distributed free fluorescent tubes to residents in Beijing’s remote countryside areas and put Zhejiang-based Yankon Lighting Group in charge of post-use treatment of lights. Chang Yi， secretary general of the association， told China Youth Daily that the company paid a huge amount of money for transporting these lamps from Beijing to Zhejiang， where the company’s recycling facilities are located， as lights are highly fragile. On November 7， 2012， the China Association of Lighting Industry published an article entitled Scientific Understanding on Mercury Content of Fluorescent Lamps. It said at the end if 150 million lamps expire in China and each lamp contains 1.5 mg to 5 mg of mercury， recycling of these lamps would only produce 0.225 to 0.75 tons of mercury. Meanwhile， the recycling costs total 180 million yuan （$28.57 million）. “Considering the small amount of retrieved mercury， whether such huge investment of money and manpower is worthwhile needs further study，” the article said.
Chang said that he expected the government to play a bigger role in CFL disposal by investing money to install a regular return system.
Jiefang Daily quoted environmental experts as saying that lighting manufacturers， the government and environmental NGOs should pool their strength to keep CFLs out of the trash. They suggest manufacturers should be required to warn consumers about contamination risks on their advertisements and packaging. “The government should subsidize the establishment of regular pick-up services provided by community committees， NGOs and companies， give residents incentives for handling their waste lights properly and support companies and major cities to establish facilities to dispose of them safely，” they said.
However， as there is no CFL-disposal service available in residential communities in Beijing， Zhang suggested storage of burned out lamps to his audience since intact CFLs will hold their mercury indefinitely. He himself once stored more than 20 fluorescent lamps in a corner of his office before sending them to a hazardous waste recycling center.
Zhang has also persuaded company sponsors of his organization’s CFL promotion campaign into donating money to educating the public on reducing mercury pollution.
Under a three-year program launched by the Chinese Government in 2008， individual purchasers of CFLs manufactured by companies winning government bids enjoyed a 50-percent discount and organizational purchasers enjoyed 30-percent subsidies. The program set a goal of promoting the use of 150 million energysaving lighting products nationwide， which could reduce pollution by 29 million tons of carbon dioxide and 290，000 tons of sulfur dioxide every year. By the end of 2011， the program had subsidized the purchase of 500 million CFLs nationwide.
Despite the program’s enormous success in energy conservation， people are now concerned that the mercury in the expired lamps is not kept out of landfills and incinerators. Jiefang Daily， a Shanghai-based newspaper， reported on December 6， 2012， that more than 100 million CFLs in China were reaching the end of their lifespans.
Unlike LED and incandescent lamps， CFLs contain mercury. No mercury is released when the bulbs are intact or in use， but if the bulb breaks， as much as 5 mg of mercury may be released.
Although 5 mg—around the size of the tip of a ballpoint pen—is a tiny amount when compared to the 1 to 3 grams in a mercury thermometer， the vast number of spent lamps can accumulate into a major source of severe pollution.
Scientists have confirmed that the mercury in a CFL can pollute more than 100 tons of water and the surrounding soil after it reaches a landfill， where bacteria convert it to far more toxic organic mercury compounds such as methyl mercury， which can be absorbed through skin or mucous membranes. Improper disposal of CFLs in landfills or incinerators may also release mercury vapor into the atmosphere.
According to the China Association of Lighting Industry， China produced around 4.7 billion CFLs in total in 2011 and 1.8 billion of them stayed in China. If every lamp contains 5 mg of mercury on average， without proper disposals， lamps consumed in China would release a total of 95 tons of mercury， which could stay in the atmosphere for up to one year and travel around the globe.
An ignored issue
The first step of processing CFLs involves crushing the bulbs in a machine that uses negative pressure ventilation and a mercuryabsorbing filter or cold trap to contain mercury vapor. The crushed glass and metal are stored in drums， ready for shipping to recycling factories.
Many municipalities and provinces on the Chinese mainland have purchased such machines. But underutilization is common among CFL recycling facilities nationwide， reported China Youth Daily.
Even in Beijing， which has the earliest recycling program for CFLs among Chinese cities， still only a small proportion of burned out lamps are disposed of as hazardous waste. The Beijing Hazardous Waste Disposal Center has the city’s only machine to dispose of waste CFLs， which was put into operation in 2008. An anonymous technician from the company told Beijing Review that although the Sweden-made machine could recycle up to 1，500 CFLs per hour and the government subsidizes the center 1 yuan （$0.16） per lamp， it is left idle many days a year， as only a small number of organizations and virtually no individuals bring spent lamps.
Unlike in many other countries， the presence of mercury in fluorescent lights is neither well known nor well communicated to the Chinese public. Special handling instructions for breakage are not printed on the packaging of household CFL bulbs.
Although mercury-containing bulbs were put on a national list of hazardous waste as early as 2008， the sixth article of the list says that households are exempt from the ordinary hazardous waste regulations； so CFLs may legally be disposed as normal household trash.
The Beijing Hazardous Waste Disposal Center disposes of 2 million CFLs a year， more than 50 percent of which are from a compulsory government collection program from public institutions， while the rest are mainly defective products from lamp manufacturers. “We hope to sign disposal contracts with more companies and public institutions. However， due to their reluctance to pay disposal fees， we have only signed such contracts with around 200 companies，” said Wang Dongjian， deputy director of the center.
An anonymous marketing executive from the center told China Youth Daily that when they contacted companies to collect retired tubes， people on the other side of the telephone were often stunned to know that they are supposed to pay the center for the disposal instead of the other way round.
Wang said that his center charges less than 8 yuan （$1.29） for disposing of 1 kg of waste fluorescent lamps and the pricing is not even profitable if depreciation and maintenance of the machine and costs of transportation of the lamps are taken into consideration.
“As mercury is the only mobile heavy metal pollutant， mercury contamination could exert heavy costs on the environment and should be prevented as early as possible，” Wang said.
No service providers
Philips Lighting， the largest player in the global lighting market， does not provide individual consumers with service or direction on disposal of their retired CFL products in China. Lighting products retailers， including Ikea， do not offer CFL-return programs in China either.
Li Yan， an associate professor at the School of Environment and Natural Resources of the Beijing-based Renmin University of China， has been studying mercury pollution caused by CFLs since 2007. Li said that the public is illeducated on possible mercury pollution caused by leaving CFLs in the trash. For example， the government of Xiamen in southeast China’s Fujian Province installed bins for spent fluorescent lamps in 2008， which were in service only briefly as they were often mistaken by residents as regular dustbins.
Many economists in China believe that it is impractical to ask CFL consumers to pay for safe disposal of retired products. According to a survey conducted by China Youth Daily on supermarket shoppers， they believe that manufacturers and importers have an obligation to collect and recycle CFLs as the retail price includes an amount to pay for recycling.
However， lighting industry associations say that it is unfair for producers to bear this burden alone. The Beijing Lighting Industry Association once distributed free fluorescent tubes to residents in Beijing’s remote countryside areas and put Zhejiang-based Yankon Lighting Group in charge of post-use treatment of lights. Chang Yi， secretary general of the association， told China Youth Daily that the company paid a huge amount of money for transporting these lamps from Beijing to Zhejiang， where the company’s recycling facilities are located， as lights are highly fragile. On November 7， 2012， the China Association of Lighting Industry published an article entitled Scientific Understanding on Mercury Content of Fluorescent Lamps. It said at the end if 150 million lamps expire in China and each lamp contains 1.5 mg to 5 mg of mercury， recycling of these lamps would only produce 0.225 to 0.75 tons of mercury. Meanwhile， the recycling costs total 180 million yuan （$28.57 million）. “Considering the small amount of retrieved mercury， whether such huge investment of money and manpower is worthwhile needs further study，” the article said.
Chang said that he expected the government to play a bigger role in CFL disposal by investing money to install a regular return system.
Jiefang Daily quoted environmental experts as saying that lighting manufacturers， the government and environmental NGOs should pool their strength to keep CFLs out of the trash. They suggest manufacturers should be required to warn consumers about contamination risks on their advertisements and packaging. “The government should subsidize the establishment of regular pick-up services provided by community committees， NGOs and companies， give residents incentives for handling their waste lights properly and support companies and major cities to establish facilities to dispose of them safely，” they said.