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…
