TOO MUCH GREEN

As I was leaving the Stop and Shop on Nantucket today, some tree-hugger with a clip board came up to me and asked me if I wanted to help with his campaign for the imposition of even more recycling. It is already at the ridiculous level on this island with separate categories for plastic, glass, paper, and everything else all put into clear plastic bags so they can see you're not trying to pull a fast one and throw out a plastic bottle in with the food waste. You have to use a box of plastic bags per week for a family of two. How much more could this guy want us to do? Maybe we will have to bring our batteries and CFL lightbulbs back to the factory for disposal. Unfortunately, most of the CFL (Fluorescent) light bulbs are made in China, which would mean I would have to buy all those carbon credits to make up for the fuel used by the airplane, and so on. This could really get expensive. It could lead to the return of the "dark" ages.

Just before we left our home in Sarasota, I changed a few lightbulbs that would turn on automatically at night so it would look like we were home and also use less electricity. The natural selection and sooner or later your only choice in bulbs... the CFL, Compact Fluorescent Light, with more MERCURY in it than the average Swordfish. Upon entering our kitchen one day, I smelled the unmistakeable smell of a burning ballast. It was coming from a relatively new CFL in the ceiling. I changed it to an incandescent bulb. The offender looked more of less like the one in the photo above. It could have caused a fire in our absence. Sure we would have saved 53 cents in electricity, but would have lost our house, just as if we went through foreclosure. I better check my insurance policy, there may be an exclusion for CFL bulbs.

So now, not only do they give you less light and resist dimming unless you get the real expensive ones, they can burn your house down and release mercury into the landfill. Save the planet, use less energy, buy a hybrid car, CFL bulbs, and read your newspaper online. Just how do we recycle the huge Prius batteries, and the CFL bulbs? We will be up to our asses in Lithium and Mercury. But at least we meant well.