Over the last few years the pressure has been building for a more environmentally-responsible approach to the disposal of gas discharge lamps such as fluorescent, sodium, metal halide and mercury vapour light sources. More recently, there have been a number of developments that have given real impetus to this movement, with implications for building operators, maintenance contractors and even specifiers of light sources.

Because of these developments, and other legislative changes that are due to come into force next year, recycling is now the only viable option for the majority of building operators in the commercial, industrial and public sectors.

These particular types of light sources have been targeted because they contain small quantities of dangerous substances such as mercury - and it is important these toxic chemicals are not released to the environment. And, while each lamp only contains a small amount of mercury, vast numbers of these lamps are used and disposed of in the UK every year – resulting in a significant environmental threat.

The fact that they are used in such large quantities in commercial and industrial buildings also makes it more viable to recycle the other components in the light sources.

At the heart of these driving forces are three very important pieces of legislation that have had, and will have, a big impact on lamp disposal by reducing the availability of hazardous landfill sites, making disposal more expensive and forcing waste producers to be more accountable for their waste streams.

In July 2004 the Government introduced the Landfill Directive, which reduced the total number of hazardous landfill sites in the UK from 250 to 10, and only a couple of these are licensed to deal with mercury-containing waste. For lamps and tubes, in particular, this has resulted in a tripling of the cost of sending waste to landfill.

More recently, on 16 July 2005, we saw the introduction of the Hazardous Waste Regulations in England and Wales. The regulations are based on the European Hazardous Waste Catalogue.

Under the new regulations, lamps and tubes are now classified as hazardous waste and attract a hazardous waste consignment fee when any transfer of waste lamps is made. In addition, any site producing more than 200kg of any type of hazardous waste per annum will have to register as a hazardous waste producer and obtain a site registration code.

As a guide to what this actually means, around 500 fluorescent tubes constitute about 200kg. However, it’s important to remember this threshold covers all types of hazardous waste, not just lamps. The same regulations also classify cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors and lead acid batteries as hazardous waste, and it only takes 15 CRT monitors to take a company up to the 200kg threshold.

The upshot of this is that the majority of organisations will have to register with the Environment Agency, at a cost of £28 per site. Failure to register and obtain a site code will mean that waste contractors are not allowed to collect waste from that site and any contravention can lead to fines of both the building operator and the contractor.

It’s also important to bear in mind that the registration applies to each individual site that produces over 200kg of waste, not the organisation as a whole.

Completing the legislative trio is the WEEE Directive (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment), which will also be introduced during the early part of 2006. When this Directive comes into force, recycling of lamps and tubes will become mandatory, so everyone involved really needs to be gearing up for these changes now, if they haven’t already started to make plans.

To deal with these challenges in a way that will reduce the overall life cycle costs of a building, lamp disposal now needs to become a consideration in the initial design process. There are still some projects where long life, energy efficient light sources are rejected through ‘value engineering’ exercises because the payback doesn’t satisfy the needs of the financial decision makers.

With the latest legislation, however, the cost of lamp disposal is now higher and the figures used for calculating paybacks have changed accordingly. Consequently, specifiers will need to take the costs of disposal into account when recommending the types of light sources to be used.

Of course, by using longer life, more efficient lamps building operators will be able to mitigate some of the extra costs through improved energy efficiency and extended maintenance cycles. In larger buildings, it will often be cost-effective to introduce a group lamp replacement strategy which identifies the optimum time to replace all of the lamps at one time.

This has the added advantage of saving money by ensuring maximum light output for minimum energy consumption. This is because discharge lamps give out less light as they get older, while using the same amount of electricity – in fact, tests have shown that most discharge lamps start to waste energy when the light output has fallen below 80 percent of their original output. This strategy has been put to the test in numerous studies and is now recommended by professional lighting designers for most buildings in the commercial, retail, pubic and industrial sectors.

These changes also have implications for contractors involved in lighting maintenance, who will not only have higher costs to deal with, but will also have to put measures in place for safe disposal of lamps. At the same time, building operators will have a responsibility to check that the contractors they are using are adhering to the required standards.

For the majority of building operators the most cost-effective route for complying with the new legislation will be to team up with a specialist contractor that is licensed to deal with hazardous waste such as lamps. In relation to this, it’s important to select a contractor that can handle the very special requirements associated with recycling discharge lamps.

Special treatment

Gas discharge light sources are amongst the most challenging forms of hazardous waste to deal with because they use so many different materials that have to be separated. Consequently, there are only a few specialist companies in the UK with the facilities and expertise to ensure that 100 percent of the lamp components are dealt with in compliance with the requirements of the legislation. Mercury Recycling employs state-of-the-art machinery and techniques to meet this requirement.

For example, the vacuum within the lamps means they implode when crushed so the crushing procedure has to be contained within specially constructed machines. Highly flammable hydrogen gas is also released when the sodium from sodium lamps is exposed to water, so special precautions have to be taken with this both when processing and storing these lamps.

In addition, the glass in many lamps is coated with a mixture of phosphors and this has to be stripped off before the glass can be re-used. These phosphors also contain mercury, which is distilled from the phosphor mix at very high temperatures (around 800°C) to reclaim pure liquid mercury. In the case of sodium lamps, the sodium is also reclaimed. Ferrous and non-ferrous metals are also separated from other components and sent for re-use.

In preparation for these changes, the lighting industry has been working closely with the waste industry to ensure procedures are in place. To that end, a not-for-profit organisation called Sustainalite was established to, amongst other things, create an approved protocol for lamp recycling methods. Mercury Recycling is a founder member of Sustainalite.

Figures provided by Sustainalite show that around 12.5 million lamps were recycled in 2004. However, during the same period, 100 million lamps were distributed in the UK so there is still a huge gap. Thanks to the changes in legislation, that gap will be closed significantly in the coming years.

Printer friendly version

Email this article to a friend