EU agrees on total ban of bee-harming pesticides

Re:EU agrees on total ban of bee-harming pesticides by exabrial on Friday April 27, 2018 @03:01PM (#16943352)

I wouldn't be so quick to pat them on the back about that... First came CFLs, which put literal tons of mercury in landfills. ...not to mention their terrible power factor almost negated any efficiency improvements.

LED solves many of these issues thankfully,

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Re:EU agrees on total ban of bee-harming pesticides by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC on Friday April 27, 2018 @08:32PM (#16945479)

> not to mention their terrible power factor almost negated any efficiency improvements.

A power factor is not what you think it is (has zero to do with efficiency).

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Re:EU agrees on total ban of bee-harming pesticides by exabrial on Sunday April 29, 2018 @12:56PM (#16952791)

In fact, it does. A lot of transmission energy is wasted as heat when powering devices with a terrible power factor. Replacing a 60w incandescent with a 15w device that has a .5 power factor isn't netting the environmental savings advertised.

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Re:EU agrees on total ban of bee-harming pesticides by apcragg on Saturday April 28, 2018 @12:01AM (#16946000)

I'm similarly skeptical that replacing 70 watt bulbs with 15 watt bulbs with poor power factors would end up being a wash. IR loses from the increase in reactive current would not cover the 55 watt gap.

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Re:EU agrees on total ban of bee-harming pesticides by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC on Saturday April 28, 2018 @01:38AM (#16946227)

There isn't even any reactive current, it's just a non-sinusoidal load current because there is a rectifier and capacitors for smoothing the rectified voltage at the input.

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Re:EU agrees on total ban of bee-harming pesticides by petre on Saturday April 28, 2018 @12:21AM (#16946051)

We moved from halogen directly to LED bulbs. Never liked CFLs mainly because of the mercury. I guess it's up to you to decide and educate others.

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Re:EU agrees on total ban of bee-harming pesticides by herbst on Saturday April 28, 2018 @07:18AM (#16947125)

There was or may still is a guide on a official eu website what you are supposed to do when you break a CFL at home.

It involved having special full body clothing, removing all other people from the room/place and other creepy things.

Once I've told people that they happily bought the then 50$ led bulbs. Usually at least.

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Re:EU agrees on total ban of bee-harming pesticides by daveFNbuck on Saturday April 28, 2018 @10:58AM (#16947929)

How are you supposed to get rid of a CFL if it doesn't break? I'd happily do it if there were a reasonable option.

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Re:EU agrees on total ban of bee-harming pesticides by freeflight on Saturday April 28, 2018 @12:42PM (#16948418)

In recycling crazy Germany, most recycling yards will take your old CFLs at no cost [0].

[0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altlampen-Recycling

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Re:EU agrees on total ban of bee-harming pesticides by samstave on Friday April 27, 2018 @03:14PM (#16943477)

How much [toxic stuff] goes into making LEDs? If any?

We shall, in short order respectively have trillions of LEDs in landfill.

Old LEDs were a dollop of glass/plastic over the device, but sme/rgb LEDs are a bit more complex than the old LEDs of the past.

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Re:EU agrees on total ban of bee-harming pesticides by DubiousPusher on Friday April 27, 2018 @05:14PM (#16944382)

Due to their long life, they probably won't enter into landfills in the same quantities as other bulbs. However, I believe many of the newer bulbs have silicoln chips in them and there's trouble with runoff from the metals on those chips if I recall. Don't take my word for it though, this is old creaky info from deep in the recesses of my brain that I'm too lazy to validate right now.

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Re:EU agrees on total ban of bee-harming pesticides by toomuchtodo on Friday April 27, 2018 @05:24PM (#16944455)

LED lighting can be recycled the same as e-waste. The challenge there is to ensure you have a proper e-waste stream recycling system setup, but it's a solved problem on the technical side.

Luckily, due to LED longevity, we have a decade or two to get better at recycling e-waste for the majority of bulbs out there.

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Re:EU agrees on total ban of bee-harming pesticides by userbinator on Friday April 27, 2018 @11:55PM (#16945988)

due to LED longevity

The Phoebus cartel may be long gone but planned obolescence is a stronger force than ever before.

Low-power indicator LEDs do have extremely high longevity, but the type used for illumination certainly don't, because they are operated far closer to their limits; plus they need special driver circuitry which also limits lifespan. Components like electrolytic capacitors have lifetimes far shorter than the LED itself in typical LED lamp applications.

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Re:EU agrees on total ban of bee-harming pesticides by TeMPOraL on Saturday April 28, 2018 @08:17AM (#16947303)

Yup. I've had several el Cheapo LED bulbs fail on me, and it always seem to be a problem of the electronics driving the bulbs. I wouldn't be surprised if, in China, people were actually recycling the bulbs, because it probably only involves replacing the right capacitor or driving IC.

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