BIS Maintained Work Was Going on to Control Level of Mercury in CFL Lamps

Amidst reports of higher than permissible limit of mercury found in Compact Fluorescent Lamp, the Bureau of Indian Standard (BIS) has maintained that work was going on to control the level of mercury in CFL lamps within prescribed limits. Senior officials from Bureau of Indian standards (BIS) who were in Chandigarh to attend a seminar on “Lighting and National Lighting Code”, talking to the media on sideline of the conference maintained standard for having prescribed mercury level inside Common Fluorescent Lamps (CFL) has been formulated but was still in testing stage. Even as the standard for having mercury level within acceptable level of 5mg/CFL has been formulated , it is being tested and only when the results emerge , the next step could be taken. There are around nine recognised labs across the country for checking the standards formulated for CFL mostly private labs with just one lab with BIS . A report had appeared in certain section of media which said, in absence of law to put a cap on mercury levels use in the CFL lamps, mercury much above acceptable level of 5mg/CFL was being used. The report titled, “Toxics in that glow”, attributed to Toxic Links revealed mercury content in CFL lamps in India ranged between 2.27mg to 62.56 mg which was much above the acceptable level. In absence of proper mechanism of CFL disposal the report suggest high emission of mercury in atmosphere could pose health hazards for the individual. Market of CFL lamps in India has exploded in last few years following schemes launched by some state government and centre government for promoting use of CFL for energy conservation. The BIS officials believe the substitute for the mercury filled CFL lamps could be LED lamps. Since Light emitting Diode(LED) lamps does not emit mercury and are more energy efficient compared to CFL lamps, effort should be laid on promoting LED lamps. Source: business-standard.com