Lamp Recycling = Artificial Industry?

I am going to have to disagree with my first hand knowledge of a company in Indianapolis that recycles the material from the crushed bulbs. I provided a pollution prevention opportunity assessment (sustainability assessment with life cycle analysis) to the company. Here is how they do it from my memory (to bad I don't still have my files and plant layout).

The tube bulbs are crushed in an inclosed crusher that captures 99.9% of the particulate matter (including the mercury) and cuts off the metal ends to the tubes. The captured gases are put through a distiller that removes the mercury. I don't remember exactly how the distillation column worked. I just remember a spiralling tube with inlet and outlet and a mercury storage tank. The mercury is sold on the open market through an outside company (not exactly sure how the markets work or where the mercury goes because I didn't get to talk to the outside company). The glass is put through a washer to remove any mercury residue. This water goes through the above mentioned distiller for the same reasons. The metal ends were sold on the open market through a local recycling company. The glass was stored in 110' trailers and shipped offsite twice a week. The company had 4 trailers.

The cfl's went through a hands on process where the bulb was broken at the inlet air flow to the tube crusher. The metal and plastic were separated and sold to the local recycling company. They barely made anything off of the plastic. The metal and mercury sold for enough that the company has been profitable.

The issue they had was the glass was going to a landfill. I found a company (art products manufacturer that provides glass beads) in Indiana that was able to use the glass as long as it had less than a certain percent of mercury. After some samples were sent off and tested, the bulb glass was found to be well below that limit. Now the companies have a great relationship where the bulb recycler ships the glass to the art products manufacturer. The bulb recycler weas losing over $100,000 every year in landfill costs not counting having to haul the glass to the landfill themselves. This project saved them the landfill costs. The hauling costs are about the same.

It can be done and is profitable. Those companies that are landfilling everything except the metals are not getting the full potential out of the resources that they have. Every state has pollution prevention people that will help out with this whether they are state employees, college student programs, project specific interns or consultants doesn't matter. The resource is there and is free if the state employees, college student programs or interns are used.

The glass could have also been used in asphalt. We just already new that the art product manufacturer needed glass as one of my coworkers was helping them on some other projects.