'Green' lightbulbs poison workers

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-19-2008
'Green' lightbulbs poison workers
46
Wed, 05-13-2009 - 5:44pm

It's not easy being green. It seems to help us in the west a lot if other people pay the price for our being green. Though we still wind up with toxic CFL bulbs in our homes.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6211261.ece

'Green' lightbulbs poison workers

Hundreds of factory staff are being made ill by mercury used in bulbs destined for the West

WHEN British consumers are compelled to buy energy-efficient lightbulbs from 2012, they will save up to 5m tons of carbon dioxide a year from being pumped into the atmosphere. In China, however, a heavy environmental price is being paid for the production of “green” lightbulbs in cost-cutting factories.

Large numbers of Chinese workers have been poisoned by mercury, which forms part of the compact fluorescent lightbulbs. A surge in foreign demand, set off by a European Union directive making these bulbs compulsory within three years, has also led to the reopening of mercury mines that have ruined the environment.

Doctors, regulators, lawyers and courts in China - which supplies two thirds of the compact fluorescent bulbs sold in Britain - are increasingly alert to the potential impacts on public health of an industry that promotes itself as a friend of the earth but depends on highly toxic mercury.

Making the bulbs requires workers to handle mercury in either solid or liquid form because a small amount of the metal is put into each bulb to start the chemical reaction that creates light.

Mercury is recognised as a health hazard by authorities worldwide because its accumulation in the body can damage the nervous system, lungs and kidneys, posing a particular threat to babies in the womb and young children.

The risks are illustrated by guidance from the British government, which says that if a compact fluorescent lightbulb is broken in the home, the room should be cleared for 15 minutes because of the danger of inhaling mercury vapour.

Documents issued by the Chinese health ministry, instructions to doctors and occu-pational health propaganda all describe mercury poisoning in lighting factories as a growing public health concern.

“Pregnant women and mothers who are breastfeeding must not be allowed to work in a unit where mercury is present,” states one official rulebook.

In southern China, compact fluorescent lightbulbs destined for western consumers are being made in factories that range from high-tech multina-tional operations to sweat-shops, with widely varying standards of health and safety.

Tests on hundreds of employees have found dangerously high levels of mercury in their bodies and many have required hospital treatment, according to interviews with workers, doctors and local health officials in the cities of Foshan and Guangzhou.

Dozens of workers who were interviewed on condition of anonymity described living with the fear of mercury poisoning. They gave detailed accounts of medical tests that found numerous workers had dangerous levels of the toxin in their urine.

“In tests, the mercury content in my blood and urine exceeded the standard but I was not sent to hospital because the managers said I was strong and the mercury would be decontaminated by my immune system,” said one young female employee, who provided her identity card.

“Two of my friends were sent to hospital for one month,” she added, giving their names also.

“If they asked me to work inside the mercury workshop I wouldn’t do it, no matter how much they paid,” said another young male worker.

Doctors at two regional health centres said they had received patients in the past from the Foshan factory of Osram, a big manufacturer serving the British market.

However, the company said in a statement that the latest tests on its staff had found nobody with elevated mercury levels. It added that local authorities had provided documents in 2007 and 2008 to certify the factory met the required environmental standards.

Osram said it used the latest technology employing solid mercury to maintain high standards of industrial hygiene equivalent to those in Germany. Labour lawyers said Osram, as a responsible multi-national company, was probably the best employer in a hazardous sector and conditions at Chinese-owned factories were often far worse.

A survey of published specialist literature and reports by state media shows hundreds of workers at Chinese-owned factories have been poisoned by mercury over the past decade.

In one case, Foshan city officials intervened to order medical tests on workers at the Nanhai Feiyang lighting factory after receiving a petition alleging dangerous conditions, according to a report in the Nanfang Daily newspaper. The tests found 68 out of 72 workers were so badly poisoned they required hospitalisation.

A specialist medical journal, published by the health ministry, describes another compact fluorescent lightbulb factory in Jinzhou, in central China, where 121 out of 123 employees had excessive mercury levels. One man’s level was 150 times the accepted standard.

The same journal identified a compact fluorescent lightbulb factory in Anyang, eastern China, where 35% of workers suffered mercury poisoning, and industrial discharge containing the toxin went straight into the water supply.

It also reported a survey of 18 lightbulb factories near Shanghai, which found that exposure levels to mercury were higher for workers making the new compact fluorescent lightbulbs than for other lights containing the metal.

In China, people have been aware of the element’s toxic properties for more than 2,000 years because legend has it that the first emperor, Qin, died in 210BC after eating a pill of mercury and jade he thought would grant him eternal life.

However, the scale of the public health problems in recent times caused by mercury mining and by the metal’s role in industrial pollution is beginning to emerge only with the growth of a civil society in China and the appearance of lawyers prepared to take on powerful local governments and companies.

A court in Beijing has just broken new ground in industrial injuries law by agreeing to hear a case unrelated to lightbulbs but filed by a plaintiff who is seeking £375,000 in compensation for acute mercury poisoning that he claims destroyed his digestive system.

The potential for litigation may be greatest in the ruined mountain landscape of Guizhou province in the southwest, where mercury has been mined for centuries. The land is scarred and many of the people have left.

Until recently, the conditions were medieval. Miners hewed chunks of rock veined with cinnabar, the main commercial source of mercury. They inhaled toxic dust and vapours as the material seethed in primitive cauldrons to extract the mercury. Nobody wore a mask or protective clothing.

“Our forefathers had been mining for mercury since the Ming Dynasty and in olden days there was no pollution from such small mines,” said a 72-year-old farmer, named Shen.

“But in modern times thousands of miners came to our land, dug it out and poured chemicals to wash away the waste. Our water buffaloes grew stunted from drinking the water and our crops turned grey. Our people fell sick and didn’t live long. Anybody who could do has left.”

The government shut all the big mercury mining operations in the region in recent years in response to a fall in global mercury prices and concern over dead rivers, poisoned fields and ailing inhabitants.

But The Sunday Times found that in this remote corner of a poverty-stricken province, the European demand for mercury had brought the miners back.

A Chinese entrepreneur, Zhao Yingquan, has paid £1.5m for the rights to an old state-run mine. The Luo Xi mining company used thousands of prisoners to carve out its first shaft and tunnels in the 1950s.

“We’re in the last stages of preparing the mine to start operations again in the second half of this year,” said a manager at the site, named Su.

At Tongren, a town where mercury was processed for sale, an old worker spoke of the days when locals slaved day and night to extract the precious trickles of silvery metal.

“I worked for 40 years in a mine and now my body is full of sickness and my lungs are finished,” he said.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-03-2009
Thu, 05-14-2009 - 9:29am

I assume that you use a computer and electronic components to post here. If you are so greatly concerned about the environmental poisoning which the Chinese government has allowed, YOU MUST STOP USING ANY ELECTRONIC COMPONENTS RIGHT NOW. You cannot recycle what components you currently possess. Nor can you buy any new ones.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/06/60minutes/main4579229.shtml

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/world/2002/disposable_planet/waste/chinese_workshop/

http://www.infowars.com/gadget-recycling-may-be-poisoning-chinas-children/

Jabberwocka

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-30-2002
Thu, 05-14-2009 - 10:18am
I am sure you have no products from China in your home, you post to the internet telepathically, so as to avoid using


Community Leader
Registered: 04-05-2002
Thu, 05-14-2009 - 11:46am
I read no complaints on this board back when Bush, the ethanol-and-torture-loving One, was president.










iVillage Member
Registered: 03-03-2009
Thu, 05-14-2009 - 2:09pm

Oh, absolutely!

It makes sense to consider the ramifications of how we live. But if one chooses to focus solely on a single aspect, and ignore other habits or purchases which are even more egregious....

I get the impression that some conservatives have resorted to groping around for an issue in hopes of finding SOMETHING which will rouse the masses into revolt--and vindicate their opposition to Obama and his policies. The other day, it was his choice of French-sounding (not to be confused with French's) mustard. Yesterday, it was corn ethanol which isn't backed by this administration anyway and is, therefore, a non-starter. Today it's CFL's. All in all, the exercise has been more laughable than logical.

Oddly enough, conservatives USUALLY back globalization and the displacement of environmental contamination to other countries as long as so-doing results in greater profit for the corporation of choice. All this kerfuffle strikes me as decidedly out of character save for one aspect--changing to sustainable practices and products.

There will be glitches and bumps along the way to that goal since we are talking about major shifts. But insistence on the old status quo is even more contaminating and flawed--once the full picture is disclosed. Heaven forbid that happen! So let's shine a light (pun intended) on a tiny part and act like there is naught else.

BTW, I am old enough to remember the days when anything from mainland China was contraband. My, how times have changed.

Jabberwocka

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-19-2008
Thu, 05-14-2009 - 2:28pm

Liberals have lobbied for green for years. I supported some of the stuff. Getting sulphur out of coal, generally cleaning the environment has been a great thing for our country. IMO the CO2 stuff is overboard, as is the CFL.

Large business and billionaires have decided to profit nicely from the current CO2 nonsense. These institutions will happily manipulate liberal feel good environmentalism for their own substantial profit. Mr. Pickens seems like a great example. Wind power right? Well it's wind and natural gas when you look closely. You see there have to be fossil generation stations ready in the event his wind turbines fail. Government invests heavily in his wind turbines. Now he's got wage slaves who pay electric bills in Texas paying for new infrastructure to deliver his wind power across the state. That is billions being collected into Mr. Pickens pocket paid for by low income workers, for supposedly green power.

Mr. Pickens isn't a liberal, he is a profiteer. The current liberal CO2 agenda has been hijacked by the likes of GE, Pickens, Philips and others to suit their profit agenda.

The result of the CO2 crusade will be virtually no manufacturing in the U.S. Massive unemployment, and significantly higher energy demands. For any CO2 plant we shutter in the U.S. 100 or more will open in India and China. We aren't able to safe the planet ourselves. In fact our contribution to global CO2 will become less and less significant over time.

At the same time, products like corn ethanol, which destroy the environment is touted as a green fuel. We have plans for massive new immigration and amnesty which will radically increase our national CO2 footprint. Have you noticed nobody is asking for an environmental impact or CO2 impact study regarding amnesty or illegal immigration? I wonder why? (I know why).

Corn ethanol has raised food prices worldwide, in Mexico women and children suffer so Americans can feel good about green fueled ethanol vehicles. At the same time, we are hurting women and children in China for our feel good CFL bulbs, only in China it's the mercury which is used to make the bulbs. In the U.S. women and children in Texas suffer with significantly increased electric rates to get green energy from Mr. Pickens, and to make him richer.

The pattern I see is liberals wanting something which comforts them, something green, to save the world. Then I look at the consequences, and see women and children hurt around the world, but out of sight of these same liberals. It makes me wonder why there is such a disconnect between the desire and the consequence.

If conservatives announced a plan to make the rich richer, to make the poor poorer, and to cause suffering worldwide, they'd be rightly lambasted and tossed out of elective office. When liberals achieve the same thing in the name of being "green" they expect to be loved and embraced as earths saviors. To me it's a no sale.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-19-2008
Thu, 05-14-2009 - 2:37pm

Mercury is in our new "green" light bulbs. It is a highly toxic material. When a mercury light bulb breaks, it will release mercury vapor. People should immediately exit a room and vacate it for 15-30 minutes after a CFL bulb breaks.

I've posted the clean up instructions in another thread. Mercury is treated as a hazardous material. If you use a vacuum to clean up, get ready to discard it, same for a broom.

The companies who pushed for this were GE (owner of the very far left MSNBC) and Philips. Who weren't making enough from incandescent light bulbs. CFL bulbs are more profitable for them. They are made in China as it is a low cost production country, in large part due to the lack of appropriate worker safety and environmental law. Our legislators are in part motivated by the financial interests of these companies and also to appease liberals who want to save the world with "green" CFL bulbs.

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-22-2009
Thu, 05-14-2009 - 3:29pm

Indeed lol.

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-25-2008
Thu, 05-14-2009 - 3:41pm

All of which, while interesting,

 


"      

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-03-2009
Thu, 05-14-2009 - 3:41pm

Here are some pesky facts:

Pickens is after water rights. Get eminent domain to put up his turbines at little or no land cost, and tap into the aquifer(s) underneath. Since subterranean water has no boundaries, he could conceivably tap out much of the Ogallala Aquifer without anyone else having recourse.
http://www.lubbockonline.com/stories/071008/loc_302185743.shtml
Some of us know about Pickens and don't take kindly to his self-aggrandizing maneuvers. We don't claim him as a liberal, either.

Cap and trade http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissions_trading is an incentive for factories to go to more energy-efficient forms of manufacturing. It's supposed to be a motivator for upgrade, not outsource. Are you willing to put curbs on global corporations? How about national ones? Or is that too much governmental interference? You want our factories to be as contaminating as those in China, India, or anyplace with looser environmental safeguards? Choose.

For the umpteenth time, the corn ethanol boondoggle is not one which Obama supports, nor do all liberals. I've posted this before so it may look familiar:
"Administration officials set out a $1.8bn (£1.19bn) plan to develop a new generation of more environmentally-friendly biofuels that are not made from food crops and have a lower carbon footprint, while also providing an immediate bail-out of existing corn ethanol producers, which are suffering in the global economic crisis: falling petrol prices have undercut demand for ethanol at the pump."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/06/obama-ethanol-green-biofuel
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKN0621007620090507

Kinda funny to hear someone express so much angst over "a disconnect between the desire and the consequence", in light of the big SUV/gas guzzler conversation. Maybe that's "different".

And conservatives have routinely backed measures and legislation which "make the rich richer,... make the poor poorer, and... cause suffering worldwide". Again, so much concern, so little logic.

Jabberwocka

Avatar for lucy4980
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 05-14-2009 - 4:48pm

Eye roll right back at ya.