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Is Lamp Recycling a Hoax?

09/27/2012 5:08 PM

Having visited a "state of the art" lamp recycling facility, I was dismayed at the use of the title for the facility.

They took old or unwanted fluorescent lamps, cut or broke off the ends, crushed the glass, swished it around in a large bath of water, separated the ferromagnetic parts from the glass and piled up the crushed glass so it could dry.

Because the powder coating does not separate easily from the glass, it can not be remelted. If it is, the result is a highly unstable type of glass due to the vastly different coefficients of expansion between the glass and the powder. So, it ends up in a land fill.

The metallic parts contain small amounts of mercury that refuse to wash off. But they will burn off when the metals are remelted. The insulators in the bases are incinerated in the process of re-melting the metals. I believe the raw metal ores produce less toxic gas than this process.

The water from the wash tank is hazardous waste until it is evaporated and the little bit of heavy metal (mercury) is disposed of because it is not cost effective to distill it from the sludge.

So perhaps it should be called reclamation rather than recycling? And, considering the other sources of mercury poisoning, is this really accomplishing anything?

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#1

Re: Is Lamp Recycling a hoax?

09/27/2012 5:26 PM

Actually, I buy the 'contaminated' glass and use it to make an anti-gravity component that I sell to Phoeix911, which he uses in the Free Energy Device he makes for LynDor Industries.

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#2
In reply to #1

Re: Is Lamp Recycling a hoax?

09/27/2012 5:40 PM

We've been trying for years to figure out the secret material that P911 uses in his Gravitational Amplification device that we market. Now, we know!

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#3
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Re: Is Lamp Recycling a hoax?

09/27/2012 5:45 PM

Oops.

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#4
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Re: Is Lamp Recycling a hoax?

09/27/2012 6:45 PM

Which brings us to another thread just started, cause, since we had an inkling what it was, we patented every combination of possible interest, hoping one of them would be for P911's secret ingredient.

Bingo!!!!!!

Partner, we caught another fish.

NUOJ, was this source in Ky?

Seriously, this sounds better than lots of places do. And, for my money, that's better than having them broken and taken to the landfill and buried.

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#6
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Re: Is Lamp Recycling a hoax?

09/27/2012 11:09 PM

That's OK, I make the critical parts in China & ship them over to P911 to box up for you. We all know how emphatic the Chinese are about protecting intellectual property rights!

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#7
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Re: Is Lamp Recycling a hoax?

09/28/2012 11:40 AM

No, the source was in Japan. But we have these so-called recyclers all over the country.

In many places the trash is incinerated. That would release all the mercury into the air.

Volcano's release mercury at a rate of a few tens of thousand pounds per year. Oh, and fossil fuel consumption does the same thing as volcanoes at nearly the same rate. So, I wouldn't be too concerned with sending lamps straight to the dump. We probably have larger issues to be concerned about.

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#5

Re: Is Lamp Recycling a hoax?

09/27/2012 7:42 PM

recycing is just another word for government funding.

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#8
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Re: Is Lamp Recycling a hoax?

09/28/2012 11:41 AM

government funding? Wait a minute, where did the government get the money in the first place?

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#12
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Re: Is Lamp Recycling a hoax?

09/29/2012 7:54 AM

It never ceases to amaze me. Let's keep sensible resource management and environmental responsibility out of that pesky realm of logic, and cede it to the republican wacko machine. If we only had less regulation!

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#9

Re: Is Lamp Recycling a Hoax?

09/28/2012 12:41 PM

It is better done in Europe, SOVAY (Belgium )

The plant you visited is not technolocally speaking up to date.

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#10
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Re: Is Lamp Recycling a Hoax?

09/28/2012 12:49 PM

What do you mean? What technology or "magic" is being done in Belgium. Me thinks you have been fed a bunch of propaganda. The only way to remove the powder from the glass is to use powerful acids and that creates more toxins than you started with in the beginning. Not to mention, it is simply not cost effective to use expensive chemicals just to recover a little bit of used glass.

Unless you can give a good explanation of your statement, I think you have been duped.

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#11
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Re: Is Lamp Recycling a Hoax?

09/29/2012 6:56 AM

I doubt since SOLVAY is one of the most serious chemical companies and with a very long history of chemical success. Of course when there is a solution there are several may be they found one you do not think about.

I did not have the opportunity to visit their facility so that I cannot give you more details but even if a company is not american it can have a good knowhow and find a good solution.

One remark is that they do not recover a littele bit of used glass this is done by other they are specialized in the recovering of rare earth components which as you may know are a problem for many industries since most of the reserves are in China.

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#13

Re: Is Lamp Recycling a Hoax?

10/01/2012 1:29 PM
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