Sustainable Practice in Lighting: Remanufacturing of Compact Fluorescent Lamps

Today the established paradigm in energy efficiency seems to have been symbolized by the so-called energy-saving lamps. However it is not possible to find scientific or technical publications which strongly support their use. On the contrary, it is not simple to find publications that refer to the problems that could be generated by their use.

These devices consist of two fundamental technological cores: the lamp and electronic ballast. Both have a high degree of incidence in the origin of discarding, when the user believes that the lamp has stopped working. However, a failure in the ballast may cause the discarding of an operating lamp.

In this paper, the results of faults survey that entail premature discard are shown and some practices for the remanufacturing of defective ballasts are proposed.

As a result it is concluded that up to 40% of discarded lamps can be repaired prolonging their useful life over a period of between six months and two years. In a country like Argentina, this would imply a reduction of up to 600kg of mercury per year in the dump to the environment.