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Replacing your old-fashioned incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) and High Intensity Discharge (HID) lamps can save you up to 75% in energy and last up to 10 times longer.
Recycling Compact fluorescent lamps is essential in helping the environment, however CFLs contain mercury which is harmful to the environment,so they must be recycled properly.
To properly dispose of these lamps which includes recycling their mercury, here are some local options:
Cass County: Lamps are accepted at County transfer sites:
• Walker-Hackensack,
• Leech Lake Tribal Sold Waste,
• Pine River, May Township,
• Outing (Crooked Lake Township) and
• Slagle’s by Longville.
Retail drop-off sites include:
• Ace Hardware, Walker
• Do-It-Best Lumber, Remer • Gardner's Hardware, Pine River
• Longville Builders Supply, Longville.
Crow Wing County: The County doesn’t currently accept fluorescent lamps for recycling.
Retail drop-off sites include:
• Ace Hardware, Brainerd
• Ace Hardware, Emily
• Ace Hardware, Crosslake • Build-All Lumber, Crosslake
• The Light Depot, Baxter
• Weidell’s Hardware, Brainerd
• True Value, Crosby
• True Value, Deerwood
• Carlson Hardware, Nisswa
• Our Own Hardware, Pequot Lakes
Morrison County: Used lamps are accepted at the Household Hazardous Waste Facility.
Retail drop-off sites include:
• Hardware Hank, Little Falls
• Hardware Hank, Motley
• Nilson’s Hardware, Swanville
• Royalton Lumber, Royalton.
Your County Solid Waste sites may provide recycling at nominal cost for residents. Retail drop-off locations may charge from $1 to $2 per lamp for recycling, depending upon the size.
To make the recycling process easier, each member of Crow Wing Power can receive up to ten, 50¢ coupons to redeem at retail recycling locations. Use one coupon per lamp and your participating retailer will apply this as a discount to your total recycling costs.
To receive your coupon sheet, either call us @ (800)-648-9401 (local 218-829-2827) or click on the “Contact Us” link above.
What about mercury?
One CFL contains a very small amount of mercury and should be recycled properly. Broken bulbs require special handling. By requiring less energy, CFLs will actually cut down on mercury pollution produced by burning coal. For more information on CFL sizing, bulb choices go to www.energystar.gov. For mercury information and proper disposal facts, click here.
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