“We fully support the idea of phasing out inefficient lighting in favour of energy efficient light-bulbs. In most homes, lighting accounts for 10 – 15% of the electricity bill and UK households currently use £1.8 billion worth of electricity every year on lighting. An energy saving light bulb can last up to 10 times longer than a non-efficient version. Just one energy saving bulb could save up to £7 a year, fit all the lights in your house with energy saving bulbs and you could save around £600 over the lifetimeof the bulbs. If everyone in the UK installed three energy saving lightbulbs, we would save enough energy to power all the UK’s street lighting for a year.”

CFLs are also cost effective. Advice from the Energy Saving Trust suggests that because it will last up to 10 times longer than a traditional bulb, just one energy saving bulb could save up to £7 a year and,depending on the length of time lights are in use every day, could save around £60 before it needs replacing. Fit all the lights in your house with energy saving bulbs and you could save around £600 over the lifetime of the bulbs.
In the UK £140 million a year is wasted by leaving lights switched on unnecessarily. This causes 900,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions.
There are 25 million homes in the UK with on average 23 fixed lighting points. The number of houses and the number of lighting points per house are both predicted to increase.

All fluorescent lamps contain mercury and are classified as hazardous under the Hazardous Waste Regulations 2005, so they can only be disposed of by recycling or at licensed landfill sites. In addition, fluorescent lamps (straight and compact) are included in Waste Electrical & Electronic Equipment Regulations, whereas GLS/Halogen lamps are exempt. The good news is that modern fluorescent lamps contain less mercury and last longer.

Research has showed that the extra electricity from gas-fired power stations needed by GLS/Halogen lamps to produce equivalent light output to CFLs emitted more mercury into the air and the ground than is used in the lamps, so GLS/Halogen lamps are indirectly a greater source of mercury pollution. Coal-fired stations can also emit mercury, the amount varying with the quality of the coal. With our dependency on fossil fuels, the use of electricity is a much greater problem than fluorescent lamps.