Greening of Government: Waste Management

Managing Materials - Fluorescent Tubes

Overview

Fluorescent tubes contain hazardous materials including mercury, and useful resources such as aluminium and glass, that can be kept out of landfill and recycled using an easy to manage system which incurs a small charge.

Issue

Australians consume 50 to 60 million fluorescent tubes and HID lamps every year, yet less than 1% are recycled. The rest go to landfill sites across Australia, where they have the potential to contaminate land and water as they contain toxic materials, including mercury, which in powder form makes up the white coating on the inside of the tubes. Even small amounts of mercury are highly toxic and can affect the nervous system.

Management

Fluoroescent tubes can be diverted from landfill by setting up a simple and relatively inexpensive system of collection boxes which hold approximately 100 fluoro tubes. Tubes are stored at the worksite, and when the boxes are full, the tubes are collected and processed in a machine that is able to separate out and recover glass, metal, phosphor and mercury powder, distilling the latter back to liquid metal, ensuring 100% recycling of each fluoro tube.

There are a range of contractors who collect and/or process spent fluoro tubes:

Action

1. Contact CMA Ecocycle, Chemsal or SITA to arrange purchase of box(es) and prepaid pickup/delivery:

CMA Ecocycle

• $110 per box metro Adelaide (transported by Ecocycle)
• $140 per box, regional SA (transported by freight company)

Eco Cycle Contact Details:

Wayne Burgess, State Manager
Phone: 1300 358 676 or (08) 8262 4558
E-mail: wayne@southern-ro.com.au

or

Gary Robbins, National Product Manager
Phone: 0437 191 714

E-mail: garyr@ecocycle.com.au

Chemsal

• $140 for initial prepaid box and collection transport/recycling of tubes
• $100 for subsequent collections (ie. initial fee includes purchase of collection box, with each full box collected replaced with empty box)
• Non-metro/regional sites should contact Chemsal to discuss transporting full boxes to Chemsal’s Adelaide site at Gillman, and arranging a replacement box

Chemsal Contact Details:

Phone: (03) 9369 4222
E-mail: enquiries@chemsal.com.au

SITA

• $150 for each box and collection/transport/recycling of tubes from metro or non-metro sites
• Non-metro/regional areas should check directly with SITA re: availability of collections

SITA Contact Details:
Phone: 13 13 35

2. liaise with the electrical contractor for the building and advise them of new arrangements for tubes (ie. tubes now go in storage box, not in general waste skip)

3. Ensure boxes are not located somewhere where they could create an OHS&W risk, and are preferably kept in an area where they will not be mistaken as material that needs to go into the general waste

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Reporting

Establish systems for arranging pickup of tubes and capturing data (a full box weighs around roughly 20kg).

Depending on the individual worksite situation, the electrical contractor (who removes spent tubes and fits new tubes) may be able to perform both of these tasks, or check whether the collection contractor can provide a record of tubes collected.

Alternatively, a staff member can be nominated to liaise with the contractor(s), keep track of the numbers of tubes and arrange collection.

Further Information

www.advancedrecycling.com.au/sv_fluoro.html
Fluoro Tube Recycling - Advanced Recycling Australasia

www.advancedrecycling.com.au/pdfs/Tubes_Lamps.pdf
Fluoro Tube Recycling Process - Advanced Recycling Australasia

www.advancedrecycling.com.au/pdfs/pricelist.pdf
Tube & Lamp Recycling Price List - Advanced Recycling Australasia

www.sita.com.au/media/11354/fluoro_2pp.pdf
Fluoro Tube Recycling Service – SITA

www.chemsal.com.au/file/lamps.pdf
Fluoro Tube Recycling Service – Chemsal

www.epa.gov/mercury/faq.htm
Mercury Frequently Asked Questions – US EPA

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