In case you haven’t noticed shopping at your local hardware store, the incandescent light bulb discovered by Thomas Edison has gone the way of the dinosaur. This is thanks to government regulations which encourage greater light bulb energy efficiency. The market for incandescent light bulbs has quickly been replaced by CFLs and LED bulbs in recent years. While you can still find incandescent bulbs, they are typically specialty bulbs with very low wattage that are not ideal for interior home lighting.
Compact fluorescent lightbulbs have the very alarming problem of mercury exposure should one of these nasties ever break in your home. CFLs also pose an environmental threat to soil and water surrounding landfills as few folks recycle their CFLs choosing instead to throw them in the garbage for their unsuspecting garbage collector to have to deal with sans mask and gloves.
What about LED (light emitting diode) light bulbs in comparison? I’ll give you the good news first.
LED bulbs are indeed energy efficient. End of good news.
The bad news is that they are not in any way a better choice than CFLs for your health or the environment.
How depressing! It seems stocking up on your incandescents is the only way to go at this point to tide you over until a nontoxic solution becomes commercially available – besides candles, that is!
LED bulbs Contain Toxic Heavy Metals
A study by the University of California Irvine found LED bulbs to be loaded with lead, arsenic, and/or nickel. These heavy metals are used to create the LED artificial light. This is quite different compared with the harmless, heated filament in traditional incandescent bulbs.
The high intensity red LED bulbs used in full spectrum infrared saunas contained the most arsenic. Low intensity red lights had high amounts of lead. White bulbs used for home lighting had lower amounts of lead but worrisome levels of nickel.
Fortunately, unlike CFLs, LED light bulbs are not as fragile or likely to break in the home environment, However, LEDs still need to be treated as hazardous waste. Broken bulbs in landfills threaten soil and groundwater with contamination.
Similarly, anyone unfortunate enough to break a LED bulb is advised to don a mask and gloves and sweep up the hazardous mess with a specially made broom. The team of scientists also recommended safety gear for crews who respond to car crashes as LED technology is utilized for car headlights and traffic lights now.
LED Bulbs and Too Much Blue Light
Perhaps the worst thing about LEDs is the artificial light pollution they create in a home or work environment.
Standard white LED bulbs create light that favors the blue spectrum. Exposure to this type of light after sundown disrupts circadian rhythms to the detriment of the deep, restorative sleep we all need. This is why sleep experts recommend a “no screens” policy especially for children 1-2 hours before bed. Too bad they don’t include warnings against using LED bulbs in the home too. Most parents are completely unaware how dangerous LED light is to long-term health. More on how too much blue light is wrecking our sleep in this article on biohacking your way to deeper slumber habits.
In essence, using LED bulbs introduces the serious problem of light pollution into your home environment. It’s a very unhealthy, unbalanced type of light to be exposed to on a daily basis particularly after sundown.
The only upside to LED bulbs is when you use them on the outside of your home. The cooler blue light tends to not attract as many insects!
What to Do if you Can’t Get Away from LED Light Pollution?
What to do if you can’t get away from LED light pollution because of frequent traveling or working late in an LED lit office?
Some people I know are donning special blue blocking glasses at sundown to combat the problem. These glasses prevent LED blue waves from reaching the eye so they don’t disrupt circadian rhythms. The bonus is that using these glasses allows you to work on your computer, watch TV or use your phone after sundown without sleep disruption too.
Do you use LED lightbulbs in your home? Will you be switching back to old fashioned incandescent bulbs now that you know they are bad for your health?
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Thanks so much for this info. I will be passing it along. Everyone seems to be wondering what is ok these days. My husband was getting migraines from the CFL’s so we got rid of those awhile ago. I did like the lower electricity bills though.
ECO
Here in australia the EO bulbs don’t come with warnings
It’s too bad we can’t keep buying incandescents until a truly green alternative becomes available!
Oh gee, what a shock. Never saw that one coming! (yes, that’s sarcasm – LOL)
i dont understand the need for ‘left brained’ and ‘right brained’ comments. removes much credibility.
You are ascribing political motives where none are apparent. A left-brained person tends to be a creative thinker. A right-brained person tends to be logical and more rigid. Attempting to solve a problem creatively is great–unless you throw out logic with it. *That* is Sarah’s point.
I agree with Stacy H and felt like the “left brained bureaucrats” dig was unnecessary. And to Heather, you have it backwards, the left cerebral hemisphere is concerned with verbal, analytical and computational skills where as the right is the “creative” side specializing in non-verbal, emotional and intuitive thought processes.
I’m one of those “left brained bureaucrats” and don’t support the ban as I’m sure is the case with many democrats. But if those left-brained bureaucrats decided to ban unsafe vaccines, I’m sure you’d be all for them “fixing” the right brained free enterprise system. So maybe the problem is not so much the “left brained” as it is the bureaucrats and lobbyists???
I heard about this study the other day. I will be stocking up on incandescents – while I still can!
http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2011/apr/25/study-enviro-light-bulbs-can-cause-cancer/
This is so pathetic. I have fluorescent lights in my kitchen that i would like to replace, but I am concerned I’ll be forced to have to replace them again anyway in a few years.
Just a note: You are spelling “fluorescent” incorrectly. The “U” goes before the “O”. When you talk about whole wheat “flour” the “O” goes before the “U”.
You are only the second person in 2 years of blogging to ever catch me with a typ-o. I’m sure I had more given how many posts I pump out, but still a good record, I think. Thanks for bringing it to my attention! 🙂
Sarah,
No, LED bulbs aren’t as bad as CFLs unless the bulb isn’t RoHS certified. Most LEDs on the market today are RoHS certified. This means that the component parts of the LED cannot have: more than 1000ppm of Lead, Mercury, Hexavalent chromium, Polybrominated biphenyls, Polybrominated diphenyl ether; and cannot have more than 100ppm of Cadmium.
I don’t know where you got your information. Please cite your source.
To my knowledge LEDs are Mercury-free, the solder does contain lead but it is less toxic than lead-free solder! These things are already in our environment, our food, our air–and you would be hard pressed to ever break an LED bulb.
Good gut flora and kombucha keep such dangerous substances in check.
And, LED bulbs are the last thing we need to worry about. I can make one that will last you 50 years with only 2 LEDs in it. How can you even compare the pollution of 2 LEDs (5mm x 5mm) to at least 100 CFL bulbs?!
Please do not fall prey to such scare-mongering sources. Your computer is more toxic than ALL the LED bulbs you could use in your own lifetime.
I cited the source. A study at University of CA – Irvine.
Seems to me that incandescents are the best choice but they are going to be phased out. It is really sad when so called “green” alternatives like LED are not green at all.
Please link your citation to the actual study then. Just mentioning who did a study isn’t a citation: I wanted to read the study myself.
The study Sarah mentioned is:
“LED products contain toxic metals, study finds” by UC Irvine, at:
Now, I’ve looked at suppliers of LEDs and found… no sign of what UC Irvine states. I have the official XLS MSDS “tally” of all LEDs made by Cree (an industry leader) shown before me as I write this response. They make ~29 different LEDs at the present time, and none contain more than the RoHS or REACh standards. While they do not list how much of the toxic materials are present, I can personally guarantee that you _won’t_ break an LED without working hard. (Like, drop it on the floor, smash it with a hammer, and grind it with your heel, kind-of hard.)
I like incandescent lights too, and for what I know they’re some of the safest, but beware the phosphorescent coating inside, that’s hazardous. But LED lights, so long as they are within the last few generations and RoHS/REACh compliant, will pollute less overall than any other light source.
I am not in the lighting industry, I am just a solid-state enthusiast.
However, because LEDs emit light in a 120° pattern they do not make good lightbulb replacements. Making new fixtures to work with LEDs works better in the end, and is more efficient. EG, you can adapt a torch lamp to replace that 160W halogen bulb with a single 9W LED (almost no visible difference by my estimation), but put that same LED into a standard lamp and it won’t perform so well.
The cons of LEDs are initial price and possible price of new fixtures; the pro is, you need never replace them with reasonable use.
Curious if Sarah or anyone else has an informed opinion on this. It seems like there’s always proof one way or the other, so which is more correct or relevant?? I thought the comment about toxic computers gave perspective, although not comfort. LOL
Thank you, Robert, for shedding some light (sorry for the pun) on this. Very helpful! I’m also grateful to Sarah for providing a place for us to dialogue about these important subjects!