Compact Fluorescent Lighting (CFL) has become an increasingly popular way for households to increase their energy efficiency. A typical CFL light will last eight to fifteen times as long as an ordinary lamp, but use only about a fifth to a third as much power. A typical household can save 7% on electricity bills by switching to CFLs.

The CFL lamp is similar in size to a conventional lamp, and has the same bayonet or screw-in fitting at its base. But it consists of a narrow, spiralling glass tube, rather than a glass bulb. The tube contains gas; when an electric current flows through the gas, it provides light.

Fluorescent lighting is not new – it goes back more than a century – but it has never been popular as a form of home lighting, for three reasons:

• Until recently, all fluorescent lights were long glass tubes which were hard to install and required special, expensive fittings.
• The tubes tended to flicker, be slow to start, and needed frequent replacing.
• Fluorescent lighting is white, or ‘cold’. Many people found it less comfortable than the yellow, or ‘warmer’ light from ordinary lamps.

However, technological advances in recent years have removed most of these hurdles. CFLs are now small enough to fit into ordinary lamps, they no longer flicker, and the light produced by the newest lamps is as “warm” as any old-fashioned lamp.

There are, however, two downsides to CLFs. The first is that they can cost three to ten times as much as an ordinary lamp. That’s why Rising Sun is offering households FREE lamps.

The second is that because the lamps contain tiny amounts of mercury, they must not be disposed off as ordinary garbage, but should be treated the same way as batteries and disposed of at your local recycling centre, where you will find a free drop-off box for CFLs. Many hardware and department stores, such as IKEA, Orchard Supply Hardware, and Home Depot, offer similar disposal boxes.