hi, I had to replace a few bulbs in my apartment recently. But I don't know where to dispose the fused ones. Can anyone help please?

I put them in the normal household rubbish sack, then give it a kick to break the bulbs so they take up less room. This is also quite satisfying...

I saw a slot for them at the Coop yesterday

Ah ha! I found out the answer to this last week when I took a bag full of blown lightbulbs to our local mobile decheterie, only to have the recycling man put them straight into the normal rubbish!
The traditional lightbulbs, as AbFab wrote, just get chucked into the normal rubbish collection (and are incinerated for energy).
Those energy saver ones and compact fluorescent ones are recycled (the glass is recycled, and they take out the mercury too).

I thought the CFL ones (the eco-friendly ones...) all had tiny amounts of mercury in them, so you wouldn't want them in the landfill...

They do, they will do far more harm to the enviroment than normal bulbs.

If you are not sure then just take them to any store that sells electrical stuff; they have to take them & not charge.

The amount of mercury is negligible, and less than a standard fluorescent tube.

Tom

As already said - energy saving ones go in the recycling (at coop etc.) We always took "regular" ones to Ikea as there is a slot there for them in the place where they have polystyrene/card etc recycling.

Doing a bit of a back of the envelope calculation...

5 mg of mercury per bulb
10 bulbs per household replaced each year
3 million households in Switzerland

5 * 10^-6 * 10 * 3 * 10^6 = 150 kg of mercury disposed of each year, which is not a negligible amount!

"In June, the World Health Organization changed the level of mercury consumption considered safe from 3.6 to 1.5 micrograms per kilogram of body weight per day. (A microgram is 0.000000035 of an ounce)"

But do they actually stop working? At over CHF10.- each compared to CHF0.50 for a standard bulb they should last forever.

Has anyone actually had a energy-saving bulb fail??

10 CFLs per household per year sounds like a lot. I thought they were supposed to last 10x longer than incandescent bulbs. So that would mean we changed 100 regular bulbs a year before CFLs? Even at 5x longer that is more bulbs than I've ever had to change in a year.

I take them to the 'help' desk at Migros - same place where I get recharge cards for my 'm budget' prepaid mobile...

And I have to say I am not a fan of 'energy saver' - especially Ikea ones - I don't like the way they take time to warm up, and I certainly have them fail quite regularly...

Yes, about one every year or three.

They last a long time, so 10 / houshold / year is a gross exaggeration.

Tom

Any electrical store will take them at the help desk. Do not put them in the general rubbish, this is actually illegal and can cause you trouble if they catch you, especially fluorescent ones since they contain mercury. There was a note in my Abfalcalendar this year to remind people of this...

Also most of the bigger Mgros and Coop have slots for them where you can get rid of them with the plastic soft drink bottles, water filter cartridges etc.

Hope this helps

I also thought for putting them in rubbish, but would prefer to take them to Migros or Coop. Thanks to all for your valuable suggestions.

With seven million people, taking an average weight of 70kg, that's a maximum dose for Switzerland of about 270kg. So 150kg is about half the safe dose. Still, better if it's disposed of properly!

I'm slowly switching over to LED.

these were so cheap in the UK, at one time shop called Homebase were selling them 10 for a £1 and a number of organisations sent them out for free. Know a number of my neighbours in London have heaps.

Seems a 'con' at over CHF10 each, next time in Otto' will check out the price there

I'm slowly switching over to LED -
Me 2

Very quick warm up time & a decent light