Lamps are fragile, please treat with care

Broken lamps release their mercury vapour into the environment in an uncontrolled way, unnecessarily poisoning the environment. If the lamps stay intact until they get to the treatment facility, all of the mercury can be gathered in a safe and environmentally responsible way.

Broken lamps mean broken glass fragments that can add unnecessary danger to the people who need to work with the containers. If the lamps remain unbroken until they arrive at our treatment facilities, they will be broken down inside machines in the most controlled and safe way.

Steps that can (and really must) be taken to prevent broken lamps

• Do not throw or drop lamps into your containers.
  They are fragile glass objects containing hazardous chemicals.
  • They must be placed into container with the care they deserve.
  • The Recolight RB19 container is designed to make this is easy as possible.
  • Side doors allow lamps to be placed into empty containers without breakage.

• Linear and non-linear lamps.
  If reasonable care is taken, there need be no problem mixing linear & non linear lamps.
  • It’s very important to stack lamps sensibly.
  • Store linear fluorescents in tidy rows on top of each other.
  • Mixing linear and other lamps in an untidy way can lead to breakage.
  • The weight of lamps piled up on top of jumbled lamps will cause the lamps to break.

The right lamp container

The majority of waste lamps collected by Recolight are linear, but if Recolight Collection points have a different waste lamp mix, Recolight will provide a pallet box or a 6/8ft rectangular container.
The wrong lamp/container choice can lead to higher lamp breakage and excessive container damage and ageing.

Recolight guidance for storing lamps and completeing risk assessment

Our website pages for Business provide comprehensive guidance to help you manage your site and lamp collections.

GO TO > Recolight > Business > Managing your site