Since the government launched its energy-saving bulb program in 1996, China has been both the biggest bulb producer and exporter in the world. Photo: CFP 

Guizhou Power Grid Corporation hands out 500 free light bulbs to the village of Raorao, city of Guiyang, Guizhou Province, on July 9. Photo: IC

By Peng Yining

Liu Chongxin earns a living from other people's castoffs, or at least those castoffs that are worth recycling.

"Energy-saving bulbs? Don't want them. Nobody recycles that," said the 47-year-old trash expert frisking through garbage up over his knees, sifting for items like paper boards,
iron wires or plastic bottles.

"These old bulbs are worthless and their shards cut my feet."

Liu has been scouring through Beijing's garbage for more than six years. There are more and more energy-saving bulbs lying around in dumps, he said. The white glass has shattered into tiny flakes, leaving just the plastic bulb holder behind.

"That bulb might decay, but the mercury in it will never disappear in nature and will become a serious source of pollution," said Zhang Hong, a biochemistry expert from Global Village of Beijing, a nongovernmental, nonprofit organization dedicated to environmental education.

"It might result in pollution like the Minamata disaster."

Mercury time bomb

"Minamata disease" remains a touchstone issue for contemporary Japanese society, with claims for compensation continuing to this day. There were 2,265 victims officially recognized as having the disease – including 1,784 already dead – as of March 2001. More than 10,000 have received financial compensation from the Chisso Corporation of Japan for dumping mercury into their local seawater.

Some light bulb factories allegedly do not obey safety standards and bulb workers have been poisoned by mercury due to lack of precautions, according to a report pasted onto news.163.com on May 6, 2009.

The report cites another alleged report from Nanfang Daily that 68 of 72 workers at Nan Hai Fei Yang, a bulb plant in the city of Foshan, Guangdong Province, suffered mercury poisoning.

Pollution and poisoning by mercury mines in Guizhou Province once prompted local government to shut down all its large mines, the report claimed, adding that surging demand for the new type of bulbs – both overseas and domestic – had prompted their reopening.

In 1996, China began heavily promoting energy-saving light bulbs – often labeled compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL) – through a subsidy program called the Green Lighting Project.

Sixty-two million bulbs worth more than 10 yuan each were sold for just one yuan each in 2008, and that number will rise to 120 million this year, according to a government report.

Li Huanxi, a member of the Beijing Municipal Committee, said he got up early on Saturday morning to buy the one-yuan bulb in Beihang neighborhood office of Beijing. More than 100 thrifty locals had beaten him to the front of the line.

"Each of us could get a one-yuan bulb after showing our residence permit, with five bulbs maximum per family," he told the Global Times. "It would normally cost me 20 yuan each at the store."

Everyone's a winner

Li spent nearly half a day on getting the bulb. "Why not?" he said. "The government needs them to reduce carbon emissions, companies get good sales and people get bulbs almost for free."

He said he had seen posters about energy-saving bulbs pasted up in communities and public-interest commercials about using the bulb on television, but he had not seen any information at all about recycling.

"I know the bulb has mercury in it," he said. "If the government wants to promote the bulb, they should tell the public both the advantages and disadvantages of using it."

According to a national online survey on huanqiu.com on August 27, 72 percent of 438 people don't know there's mercury in the bulb that might cause pollution and 97 percent never or rarely access information about how to deal with spent bulbs. Some 82 percent just throw the bulb away.

The community official said light bulb recycling was mentioned in the notice about buying one-yuan bulbs launched in Beijing communities this year, but the last page included only one sentence: "You are welcome to bring dead bulbs for recycling when you come to buy a new one."

"Someone actually did bring a dead bulb here, but the recycling company only came here once," said Zheng Yiying, a neighborhood official for Longtan street residents committee in Beijing. "Waste batteries have recycling companies, but there are none for bulbs."

Global Village of Beijing in 1996 began to popularize recycling knowledge in communities through lectures and posters. People knew better about recycling, but it was tricky for them to adjust their habit of tossing out garbage without sorting, according to staff member Hou Fei. The government has built recycling stations, but the new light bulbs can't be collected from families as there is no recycling system for them, he said.

"After people read about recycling in textbooks and gain the relevant knowledge, then there should be policies in place to regulate refuse disposal and create a recycling infrastructure in every community," he said.

"Who has the capacity and responsibility to do this job? The government."

Now or never

The massive light bulb promotional campaign has only just begun, Li said.

"Two or three years later, there will be a boom in spent light bulbs. By then, it will be too late to consider recycling.

"Why we are so eager for quick success at reducing carbon emissions? It's the same kind of thing as years ago when we are all eager to glean the instant benefits of economic development and then overused resources."

In January this year, Li wrote a proposal for a meeting of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference advocating the government found a recycling system for energy-saving light bulbs at the same time as promoting their adoption.

"Some officials from the National Development and Reform Commission said my proposal was very important and they had been considering the same thing," he said. "But there's been no word from them so far since that meeting."

The only way to stop mercury pollution by energy-saving bulbs is recycling, said Zhou Taiming, a professor at Fudan University in Shanghai and an expert on electric light sources. He has worked for years on trying to find a safer substitute for mercury, but failed.

It's a global technical difficulty. Even we scientists haven't got a clue," he said. "We are trying to reduce mercury in the bulb, but the better solution is recycling which needs work by government, companies and everyone who uses the bulb."

China's energy-saving light bulb companies maintain mercury in each bulb at under five milligrams: the maximum permissible by European Union standards. The average mercury content is two to three milligrams, according to Chen Yansheng, director of the China Association of Lighting Industry.

Global problem

Recycling problems exist internationally. Europe and the United States recycle only 20-30 percent of light bulbs and even the best in the world – Japan – recycles only 40 percent.

"But at least they know and they care about the potential pollution of mercury in the light bulb," Chen said.

"In China, light bulb recycling itself is apparently beyond the pale."

When Chen's lighting career began in 1992, China was still producing energy-saving bulbs partly by hand. After government subsidies started in 1996, the bulb industry took off. Now China's annual of energy-saving bulbs has rocketed to 3.2 billion, with 65 percent exported. China is both the biggest producer and biggest exporter, according to Chen.

"The cost of recycling will be massive," he said. "The problem is who is going to pay for all this?"

Some bulb companies offer a recycling service for big clients like subway companies or big power plants, he said, but not for individuals or communities.

"There are at most three companies that recycle bulbs in China, including Yankon," said Chen Yiping, an engineer at Yankon Group in Shangyu, a county-level city of Zhejiang Province and China's first producer of the energy-saving bulb.

"Now we produce 400,000-500,000 a day, and recycle 4,000-5,000 including the dead bulbs we manufactured ourselves."

He said Yankon does have a recycling service for its big clients but they pay traffic expenses. The government subsidy was all frittered away on reducing the price, with nothinig spent on recycling.

"Sometimes we shut down the recycling machine because we don't have enough spent bulbs for recycling," he said. "Running that machine costs a pretty penny, I can tell you: It was imported from Switzerland and we don't have any made here in China.

"Most of the bulbs are sold to individual families. We can't gather all those together," Chen said. "People don't know how to deal with dead bulbs yet and it's not a company's responsibility to educate the public."

Desperate need for recycling

This powerful promotional campaign will continue even without the recycling system, Zhou said.

"So the only thing we can do is construct a system as soon as possible," he said.

He remains very bullish about the bulb industry "because after all, the energy-saving bulb really does work on reducing carbon emissions."

An energy-saving bulb, he said, could save five times more electricity than an old bulb and lasts six times longer.

"Saving electricity means reducing carbon emissions," Zhou said. "The bulb promotion is a way of freeing the government from the pressure of reducing emissions."

The total amount of coal consumed by the top 10 Chinese power companies accounted for 20 percent of China's coal production in 2008, according to a report launched by Greenpeace on July 28. The top three Chinese power companies together emitted more than the total greenhouse gas emissions of the United Kingdom in the same year.

In the next 10 years, China plans to reduce carbon emissions by 175-237 million tons through saving 160-216 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, according to a National Development and Reform Commission report of July 24, 2009.

As the world's largest emitter, China has also taken the lead in the race to develop and commercialize a range of low-carbon industries, according to an August 20 Climate Group report. The Chinese government's four trillion yuan ($585 billion) stimulus package in the last year put a strong emphasis on clean development and is backed by ambitious laws and policies focused on increasing the uptake of low-carbon technologies.

"The opportunities for the low-carbon industry in China are huge," Tony Blair, former British prime minister, told the Global Times.

But Zhang Yue, vice chairman of the Sustainable Buildings and Construction Initiative of the United Nations Environment Program, said he is not so optimistic about it.

"All the hype surrounding the industry developed in the name of low carbon is overdone," he said. "People usually focus on how a new energy or finished production reduces carbon emissions without paying attention to the emissions or even pollution during the process of producing new energy and low-carbon products."

What you should do when energy-saving bulb breaks

Energy-saving light bulbs contain far less mercury-4mg-than thermometers (500 mg) and older thermostats (3,000 mg), but nonetheless pose a health hazard.

In the event of breakage:

1 Try not to inhale dust from the broken bulb.
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2 Open nearby windows to disperse any vapor that may have escaped.
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3 Sweep up the fragments (use rubber gloves, not your hands) and wipe the area with a disposable paper towel to pick up all glass fragments. Do not use a vacuum.
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4 Place all fragments in a sealed plastic bag.