While outsourced, scheduled mass relamping is far safer and more efficient than replacing lamps individually, sometimes it is perceived to be necessary for a maintenance person to replace a lamp or two.
The traditional fluorescent lamp used in factories and offices — for example, the T8 or similar — is the one you are most likely to have waste disposal issues with because this lamp is so common. Fluorescent lamps contain mercury, so simply tossing old ones in the dumpster is not an option. Other types of lamps also contain mercury, including HID, metal halide, and high-pressure sodium. And other toxic materials may be present.
These lamps pose zero risk when installed properly and left alone. The risk comes in when a lamp is removed or while a new one is installed. Either way, take extra care not to break the lamp. When installing, ensure the new lamp is securely mounted. If it is a two-pin twist-in, for example, twist it all the way to its stop position. Never tape old lamps together; that greatly increases the risk that one or more lamps will implode.
Lamps that have been removed due to not functioning properly anymore need to be stored in a way that protects them from breakage. If you’re replacing a lamp, put the old one in the box the new one came in. Do that right where you did the replacement so you have a protected lamp to carry to wherever you are storing the old lamps.
Replacement tips
If you must replace a lamp, replace all the lamps in a fixture at the same time. For example, you have a 4-ft troffer with four lamps. One reason for doing it this way is if one lamp has failed, the others are not far behind. It costs a little extra to replace four lamps versus one lamp, but it costs four times as much in labor to replace one lamp four times.
If you’re simply replacing an old fixture, such as changing from fluorescent to LED, put the lamps back in the fixture so they have some protection while being transported to the old lamp storage area.
Storage tips
Some tips on storage:
- Store new and used lamps in the original containers/boxes, if those are available and in good shape. If you don’t have anything to store used lamps in, contact your electrical distributor or your relamping service for materials or at least advice.
- Store lamps so they are not exposed to being broken by falling off a shelf, hit by a lift truck, or hit from something falling from above. If they are stored on open rack shelving, it’s a good idea to put plywood on the shelf above them.
- Store lamps so that removing them from the storage area doesn’t involve additional risk, such as climbing on a ladder to get them down.
- Ensure the lamp storage area is nowhere near a floor drain or HVAC intake vent.
- If you break a lamp, protect the area from foot traffic. Wearing PPE appropriate for airborne mercury dust, use a mercury cleanup kit to remove the hazard. Put the pieces and other waste into a sealable container, and label the container as containing mercury waste.
- Consider storage a short-term solution. The facility engineer or other responsible party needs to contact a lamp recycler about removing this waste from your site.
Solve the lamp replacement issue
If lamp replacement becomes a regular occurrence, solve that problem. It could be:
- Some load in the plant is producing transients that are "zapping" lighting systems; look for large motors starting across the line.
- Old ballasts are being damaged by transients, which reduces lamp life.
- There’s a shared neutral that can’t carry all the unbalanced current.
- You have low power factor or other power quality problems in the 277V (or other voltage) distribution system.
- The lamps are just old and the whole place needs to be relamped.
- There are missing connections to the equipment grounding conductor, allowing differences of potential to exist.
- A wiring error exists. In one plant, a “power quality expert” convinced the plant staff to disconnect the strap inside each of the 480V transformers supplying each of 10 production lines. Consequently, the metallic raceway for the lighting systems, which should have been serving as the equipment grounding conductor, was energized.
Changing mercury-containing lamps ad hoc one lamp or fixture at a time poses risks to the electrician doing the work. After the work is done, the old lamps pose a risk to everyone in the place until they’ve been hauled off to the recycler.
The move toward LED further moots the mercury issue, but LED is not a perfect solution. For one thing, LED contains quite a bit of blue light and that’s a health issue. LED also might not work in your facility, due to the fragility of LED power supplies when power anomalies are present.
For now, the safest solution to dispose of mercury-containing lamps is don’t do it. If the light in a given spot is insufficient due to failed lamps, it can be bolstered at least temporarily with any number of products. Advancing the schedule for the mass relamping will take out all of the lamps that are near the end of life, thus preventing failures and the temptation to handle fragile objects that contain mercury.
