things that make me wonder...

[ratcreature]

I am using energy saving light bulbs for lamps I leave on for a long time, and just now the bulb in my bedroom started flickering. Which was fine, it had lasted some years, much longer than a regular incandescent bulb, just as advertised. Unfortunately it also started to emit an absolutely disgusting chemical smell (like solvents or melting plastic or something like that), that became noticeable as I got close to change it. I know of course that they are toxic if they break, but this one was still whole and no plastic parts had visibly melted either, and certainly they don't normally to smell like that. (I also use one of these in a desktop lamp for getting bright, more blue-spectrum daylight so that I can avoid color distortion, and my nose tends to be quite near that, closer than it came to this one while changing.)

Either way, I changed it, and ventilated the room, but this really makes me wonder what level of chemicals this thing released during its normal function, because clearly something was released at a higher level in its malfunction phase, like maybe the plastic part with the electronics got hotter than usual and thus more of something evaporated or something. Seriously, it was extremely unpleasant.

I had heard critics of these bulbs claim all sorts of negative things, including harmful chemical emissions, but had always assumed them to be somewhat overblown (I mean, I'm not unconcerned about environmental toxins, but for the most part try not to be too alarmist). But yeah, that smell was not environmentally friendly, that's for sure.

Comments

[acari]

The stinky smell may've been phenol. It's one of the substances commonly named in articles about the lamps.

[ratcreature]

Yikes. I had always assumed these criticisms, that I didn't pay much attention to, were about some sort of risk for a small background indoor toxin increase, but on a level you wouldn't detect with your own senses (of course maybe more insidious because of that), like how they say that the plastic coatings in cans release hormone-like bisphenol-A and cause infertility. Not that under some circumstances I'd have to deal with acrid smells.