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Will they see light?
• ENERGY-saving lamps are being given away but are metaphorical gift horses that one certainly should look in the mouth if unaware that they are not just to be thrown away when burnt out.
They contain mercury and dumped in their billions will pollute groundwater (Beware of these bulbs, April 17). There is the not-so-entertaining prospect of our being turned into mad hatters. A century or so ago hat-makers were affected mentally because of the mercury used in hat-making.
Islington Council and housing bodies such as the Peabody Trust (2,547 homes in Islington) are giving them away but without handy collection points to be used when they burn out. The council has just one public collection point, in the Hornsey Street, Holloway, council waste facility.
Poor and conflicting policies by the European Union are behind these doubtful giveaways. Traditional lamps of 100 watts and above are being phased out this year, 60 watts and above next year and everything else in 2011, by EC directive.
The 2006 EC Restriction on Hazardous Substances Directive banned putting mercury into landfill where billions of what are termed CFLs (compact fluorescent lighting) are likely to be buried.
CFLs are subject to the EU Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) recycling rules. The four main UK CFL producers have formed Recolight Ltd and provide funds for it to pay for recycling. Islington Council registered as a Dedicated Collection Facility (DCF). Recolight then supplies a six feet by three feet by three feet collection container.
One public collection point, Hornsey Street, is just lip service. There is no noticeable education programme for disposal of CFLs. I could not see any mention of CFLs in the council’s 17-page Waste Minimisation and Recycling Action Plan 2009-10, agreed by the council executive last week.
The council has been saddled with an ill-thought-out EC initiative but that does not mean it should sit on its hands while residents virtuously save electricity but unwittingly send burnt-out bulbs to landfill.
LEO CHAPMAN
Dufferin Street, EC1
• TELLING residents we should take our spent energy-saving bulbs to that inaccessible N7 behemoth, the Household Re-use and Recycling Centre, is codswallop (Don’t panic if bulb goes, April 24).
That an officer of the Green Living Centre is left by his political masters to OK binning our used bulbs is disgraceful. Andrew Ford knows it’s ludicrous to expect us to traipse over to Caledonian Road every time one pops. But at least he isn’t suggesting we drive to the dump as did a former executive member for the environment.
Islington’s politicians would do better to sort out borough-wide collections for the tens of thousands of bulbs Islingtonians use, rather than sanctioning the lazy use of landfill.
On another green issue: it seems that all the remaining trees at the Goswell Road triangle are now safe. There has to date, however, been no response to the suggestion that the borough’s tree officers be informed of all developments in which the felling of trees is proposed.
MEG HOWARTH
Ellington Street, N7
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