Broken CFL cleanup question

[mixxedbagg]

Last night, my son was playing and accidentally smashed a CFL bulb in our basement. (It's a semi-finished basement.) The bulb was smashed over the carpeted floor leaving shards, and apparently toxic dust, all over it.

I did the air-out last night and read through the EPA's suggestions for cleanup. They used to recommend that you actually remove the carpet (which seems drastic) and before that recommended a hazardous material contractor handle it. Now, the guidelines have been changed, but one thing remains the same--you should not vaccuum the materials up because it can actually put some of the mercury dust in the air. So, I still need a way to clean it without removing my carpet.

The guidelines do not address shampooing the carpet at all. I thought that if I removed the glass shards, I could shampoo a couple of times and remove the toxins. Is there some reason the EPA doesn't recommend this or a reason I can't think of that would make this unsafe?? The only thing I thought of is that you wouldn't want the water to go into a septic tank, but I don't use a septic tank.

This is the reason that I do not choose to use CFL bulbs except for enclosed fixtures. This bulb happened to already be in the fixture when we moved in and I couldn't justify removing it.

[LightningBG]

call your local poison control center to see if they have any real world tips. I'm sure this happens often. I'm dreading the day when they mandate these things. I'm thinking stockpile.

[mixxedbagg]

I'll try that....I hope they don't just re-read the EPA guide to me.

I would not like to see CFLs mandated solely because of the mercury. If there were mercury-free alternatives (like LEDs that weren't just outdoor flood lights), I wouldn't have a problem with it. I just would not want to be told I have to switch to a bulb with toxic materials in it.

[LightningBG]

BTW - the # for the poison control should be in the first couple pages of the phone book, if you have one.

[CAMAN]

CFL's are going to be old news in a year or two. LED will be the way to go and the price will be dropping drastically in the next year or two.

[CAMAN]

Oh, sorry, I should also mention it's a mercury vapor inside of the bulb, so the moment the bulb breaks the mercury vapor is released into the environment. Best thing to do when a bulb is broken is to remove all people and pets from the room, turn off the HVAC and open up windows to air the room out. Air out for 30 minutes or so then begin the clean up process by picking up large pieces of glass and vacuming all the small particles. The white stuff you see on the floor is just a powder they use inside of the glass to make the bulb glow white and disburse the light evenly, there is no hazardous materials in it.

[mixxedbagg]

Some of that material on the floor must be hazardous, right? Otherwise I don't know why they would recommend not vaccuuming and why old guidelines said the carpet should be removed.

After it broke last night, we turned off the heat, opened the windows, and went bowling (the bowling was already our plan). It had about 3 hours to air out.

[BoxMN]

FWIW - me and my bro broke so many of the long fouro tubes with our "slaptshots" when we were kids in our basement that we should be casting with our tails

Not to make it seem trivial... but.... well.... if you can clean it, clean it, but don't think it is end of the world. That is least of our worry's Good luck!

oh yeah, edit, I am 45, broke my first flouro tube at about 10 yo, and at least 4-5 per year until after high school. I don't have tail but I am now fatter than a tick on a lazy lab haha!

[mixxedbagg]

Yeah...I was just thinking about that. I smashed one at work once, directly over my head. All the shards and whatever rained down into my hair. There was no running water at that place, so I spent the rest of the day with tiny glass bits and dust from a flouro tube in my hair.

Still, when you have a kid and all of the sites you find say this is a big deal, it gets you a little freaked.

I put on rubber gloves, picked up the big shards, then I used contact paper to lift the little shards and debris (that bulb absolutely disintegrated when hit, then shampooed over the carpet multiple times. Unfortunately, there are still some tiny glass shards in the carpet. I may or may not run over it with the shampooer once more (hey....it'll be nice and clean) then try to vaccuum out the remaining shards. Hopefully they come up. There is one old sofa down there that was kind of under the bulb that will need to be cleaned for dust/tiny shards. I might try a foam to see if I can lift the shards up. I wore flip flops while I did it so I could just step out of them at the edge of the carpet and carry them to the downstairs sink for a rinsing rather than tracking bits of glass and whatever around the house.

I'll be replacing the other exposed bulbs down there with incandescents, except for the one that stays on all night (so the kitty will go downstairs to do it's business). That one will get a very low wattage LED. Unfortunately, the LED options for light that you would read and live by really stink at this time.

[Eric Wettschreck]

They say replace the carpet due to the liability thing. If you vacuum, and one little shard decided to stick around and your youngster cut themself on it, well.......you know how things go. If they say replace the carpet and you vacuum instead you've just taken on all liability for any injuies that may happen in the future.

Pretty extreme but unfortunately that's how it goes. Myself, I'd vacuum the carpet real good and carry on with life.

[BobT]

FWIW - me and my bro broke so many of the long fouro tubes with our "slaptshots" when we were kids in our basement that we should be casting with our tails

Not to make it seem trivial... but.... well.... if you can clean it, clean it, but don't think it is end of the world. That is least of our worry's Good luck!

oh yeah, edit, I am 45, broke my first flouro tube at about 10 yo, and at least 4-5 per year until after high school. I don't have tail but I am now fatter than a tick on a lazy lab haha!

Hear you on that. At 16 I got a job working for a rural garbage truck and we used to stop at a few business places such as Pamida where we'd load cases of expended fluorescent bulbs. We would purposely load them in the truck so they would break. We thought it was fun to listen to them explode. Like BoxMN says, I should be growing a few extra limbs and glowing in the dark.

I think most of the mercury issues we hear about with regard to CFL's is exaggerated at the consumer level. Yes, knowing that mercury can be dangerous, we should use some care about how we dispose of the bulbs but a single bulb or two breaking in one's home is nothing to panic about.

[CAMAN]

Some of that material on the floor must be hazardous, right? Otherwise I don't know why they would recommend not vaccuuming and why old guidelines said the carpet should be removed.

After it broke last night, we turned off the heat, opened the windows, and went bowling (the bowling was already our plan). It had about 3 hours to air out.

Some states even recommended bringing in an environmental cleanup team to dispose of it also in the past. At the cost of thousands of dollars, BTW. The reason, they hear the word 'mercury' and it triggers alarms and flashing red lights. The fact is, the amount of mercury in 1 CFL is hundreds of times less than what was found in the old mercury thermometers. In small amounts like you have I wouldn't be worried the whole household will get sick or die from it. Would I allow a kid in that room for a while, I might be extra cautious and air it out daily for a week or two before allowing him back in, but I wouldn't bring him to the Dr to get a battery of tests done. I found a couple sites describing how to properly clean a CFL out of carpet, first do what you have done by airing it out, clean up the large pieces, then take some masking tape and lift out as much as you can with that. Then if it needs to be vacuumed keep the HVAC off and vacuum it up. When done bring the vac outside and remove the bag/filter and place in a ziploc bag and dispose of properly. I would also run the vac for a minute while outside and shake it out to get rid of any dust remnants inside.

Now speaking of LED I wouldn't go buying anything from the big box stores just yet, but there are tons of websites selling very good LED bulbs that just screw into an ordinary socket. And in terms of wattage, that word will not be used to describe LED light brightness, you will see terms like Lumen or LUX(lumens per square meter) and MCD(millicandela), obviously the higher the number the brighter. It will also depend on how the light is focused in each LED bulb, the tighter it's focused the chances are you will find a higher brightness number. So it will vary from one manufacturer to another. There isn't yet a standard measure for LED's.

[mabr]

WHOLLY Smokes batman. The light bulb just went off in my pee sized brain.

Mixxed, what’s your deductable on your Homeowners policy? I think I can make the case based off what I’m reading on here that you have an Insurance Loss and should at a minimum get new carpet and padding where this LOSS happened. And beings that you already started cleaning some of the mess I’m sure your deductable has already been eating up with your time and materials to date. So you won’t be out any out of pocket expenses. You did your due diligence in protecting your property from further harm. But due to the nature of the loss, you will need a qualified person to do it correctly from here on out.

In order to do the project correctly I’ll need to build a containment wall in this area so I don’t contaminate unaffected areas in the remainder of the house. I’ll most likely require an air scrubber with a heppa (one time use) filter to catch any other particles that may be involved that I don’t know are present. I’ll have my men out fitted in tyvek suits, respirators, sealed gloves and goggles so their loved ones won’t sue me down the road for undue exposure as an employer. Oh boy, your insurance company isn’t going to happy with me over this loss, but I can’t care about that. I need to be concerned about myself, my employees, your son or any other person whose immune system may be at risk. Not just because of the CFL/mercury issue. I, as a contractor have to be concerned about the potential issues for lead dust, mold, asbestos and the exposure your son might have as I’m pretty sure exist if it’s an older home (which again I’m assuming based off of previous posts about window leakage).

So let’s look what that new Green CFL bulb just cost all of us compared to our old incandescent bulbs.

Conservatively I’d guess at a minimum you’re looking at 4K. That’s not taking into account if the mercury has gotten onto any other items in the room. If so who knows? Remediation is very expensive. It could easily get over 10K +++ depending on your loss. All because of regulations I MUST be concerned with as a business owner. Not saying its right or wrong. I make my living doing this type of stuff on a daily bases so I’m not speaking out of my bu--. I have an appointment with an adjuster on Tuesday for a mold loss. What started out as a small water loss with minimal drywall replacement has escalated to an entire kitchen having to be replaced because of an Ice maker line leaking for weeks unbeknown to the home owner.

Like I said earlier, the light bulb went off as I started reading this. And I’m going to start asking adjusters if they have seen any claims for broken CFL bulbs yet. Just might be the new scare word like MOLD was a few years ago. Wonder what the Insurance Companies are going to do if this has any merit for Life, Health, and Safety Issues.

[Macgyver55]

I wouldn't be surprised if "tenting" the entire structure in order to mitigate the hazzardous waste will be next, they already do it for lead.

Does anyone else remember playing with mercury back in school science......?

[delcecchi]

OK, I did a little research that might make you feel better.

The OSHA standard for mercury vapor occupational exposure is 0.1 milligram per cubic meter of air. A CFL contains an average of 4 milligrams. So if all the mercury was vapor in the air at once and the room was 12 by 12 by 8 feet (32 cubic meters) you basically are in osha compliance at .125 mg/cubic meter.

You aired out so some is gone. I wouldn't worry.

[311Hemi]

I just had the same thing happen a few weeks back. I was not aware of a CFL that had been sitting on a dresser for a while and somehow a cat knocked it off and it broke. I actually saw our baby pic up a piece of the glass in her hand....that's when I discovered it.

I called poison control and they said not to worry about the young one having touched the piece of glass. The lady said that the amount of mercury in the bulbs is small. She also mentioned the old thermometers breaking in kids mouths which was a lot more mercury and that the mercury pretty much passed through the persons system.

I cleaned up the area best I could and vacuumed it really well, and then washed down the filter and canister on the Dyson vacuum.

From the EPA, revised Dec. 2010:

Quote:

Cleanup Steps for Carpeting or Rugs

**** Carefully scoop up glass fragments and powder using stiff paper or cardboard and place debris and paper/cardboard in a glass jar with a metal lid. If a glass jar is not available, use a sealable plastic bag.

(NOTE: Since a plastic bag will not prevent the mercury vapor from escaping, remove the plastic bag(s) from the home after cleanup.)

**** Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass fragments and powder. Place the used tape in the glass jar or plastic bag.

**** Vacuuming of carpeting or rugs during cleanup is not recommended unless broken glass remains after all other cleanup steps have been taken. [NOTE: It is possible that vacuuming could spread mercurycontaining powder or mercury vapor, although available information on this problem is limited.] If vacuuming is needed to ensure removal of all broken glass, keep the following tips in mind:

o Keep a window or door to the outdoors open;

o Vacuum the area where the bulb was broken using the vacuum hose, if available, and

o Remove the vacuum bag (or empty and wipe the canister) and seal the bag/vacuum debris, and any materials used to clean the vacuum, in a plastic bag.

**** Promptly place all bulb debris and cleanup materials, including vacuum cleaner bags, outdoors in a trash container or protected area until materials can be disposed of properly.

**** Wash your hands with soap and water after disposing of the jars or plastic bags containing bulb debris and cleanup materials.

**** Continue to air out the room where the bulb was broken and leave the H&AC system shut off, as practical, for several hours.

Future Cleaning of Carpeting or Rugs: Air Out the Room During and After Vacuuming

**** The next several times you vacuum the rug or carpet, shut off the H&AC system if you have one, close the doors to other rooms, and open a window or door to the outside before vacuuming. Change the

vacuum bag after each use in this area.

**** After vacuuming is completed, keep the H&AC system shut off and the window or door to the outside open, as practical, for several hours.

[Tom7227]

I guess that my reaction to all of the info on this thread is that things can't really be all that bad. If the danger was as intense as some of the puckered pucker strings seem to think there would have been any number of class action lawsuits, government reports/warnings etc. I think it's a whole lot over blown.

[pureinsanity]

The question is, what has more mercury in it? One of those bulbs or the last fish you caught and ate?

[BobT]

The question is, what has more mercury in it? One of those bulbs or the last fish you caught and ate?

Probably a good point but I suspect one goal is to keep that amount in the fish from getting worse.

[Dave]

Does anyone else remember playing with mercury back in school science......?

I was just thinking that as I was reading this thread....