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Comment by exabrial | Hacker News Reader

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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> 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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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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