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.

Paved with good intentions

The light provided by a 20-watt energy-efficient bulb is the same as a 100-watt incandescent bulb, though the energy-efficient bulbs last for 8,000 to 10,000 hours while the incandescent options last a mere 1,000 hours.

An incandescent bulb costs just 1 to 3 yuan ($0.48), far below the price of the more energy-efficient option, which is 10 to 40 yuan, though over the long run the costs become similar, given differences in shelf life and power consumption.

The government subsidies proved to be the key difference, spurring demand. However, the question still remains as to how they will be dealt with.

Zhao said bulb producers should be the ones to establish recovery mechanisms as they have the relevant expertise. "Producers should extend their services and responsibilities beyond manufacturing products."

Zhang Lin, the chairman of a company that sells energy-efficient machinery lubrication products in Shenzhen disagreed, saying that bulb manufacturing enterprises would see their costs increase and few would do this.

"Without any profit, why would a company do it? A subsidy doled out by the government might help encourage them, or no one will even consider it," Zhang said.

The response

Whilst the imminent risks have been raised among various levels of government, the response thus far remains muted.

The Standing Committee of the Guangdong Provincial People's Congress released a draft in September to solicit public opinions on energy saving. The draft, which is still online, stipulates that battery and energy-efficient bulb producers, sellers and importers would need to collect the waste products throughout the province. A fine of up to 50,000 yuan could be issued if they refuse.

Meanwhile, some private enterprises have begun to take action. Shanghai-based energy-efficient bulb company Opple established recovery boxes for wasted bulbs in 17 communities across the city in November 2011, news portal xinmin.cn reported.

In Deqing county, Zhejiang Province, volunteers gave bulb owners 0.5 yuan for each of the energy-efficient bulbs collected, the Changchun Evening News reported on October 31.

Song Zhiliang said he usually smashes the bulbs he collects to reduce the amount of heavy metal before delivering them to toxic garbage disposal plants.

"One individual's strength is limited. I hope the government provides more support for this," Song said.

Just as the first batch of light bulbs is reaching the end of its service life, local government officials are looking to expand the program further.

Since November, cities including Dalian in Liaoning Province, Pingdingshan in Henan Province and Jingjiang in Jiangsu Province, have moved quickly to provide another round of subsidies for the purchase of such bulbs.

The annual consumption on these energy-saving lamps will surpass 1 billion in the near future, the Economic Information Daily reported on October 29.

The Ministry of Finance and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) issued a notice in December 2007, which said subsidies would be offered to residents, companies and organizations that purchased energy-efficient bulbs.

The subsidy halved the energy-efficient bulb's price for individual consumers, and a discount of 30 percent was given to companies and organizations that bought in bulk via a tendering process.

Shortly after these measures, the NDRC listed the bulb as an item containing dangerous waste in 2008.

The central government then ruled that imports and sales of 100-watt-and-higher incandescent light bulbs would be banned as of October 1, 2012, as part of a national plan to save electricity and ban all incandescent bulbs of 15 watts or above from October 2016.

"The power used for illumination accounts for 13 percent of the country's total electricity consumption," a manager of ghg-manage.com, a website on carbon reduction, told the China Economic Herald, adding that if all 1.4 billion incandescent bulbs used now are replaced with energy-efficient ones, the country could save 48 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, or a reduction of 480 million tons of carbon dioxide.