For the love of God, don't buy these bulbs!

The CFL mercury nightmare

Apparently, compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs contain mercury...at an amount 6x recommended 'safe' levels. And what happens when the bulbs have finally outlived their usefulness? From the article:

As each CFL contains five milligrams of mercury, at the Maine "safety" standard of 300 nanograms per cubic meter, it would take 16,667 cubic meters of soil to "safely" contain all the mercury in a single CFL. While CFL vendors and environmentalists tout the energy cost savings of CFLs, they conveniently omit the personal and societal costs of CFL disposal.

Wow. That's a pretty big problem. And, how many light sockets are in the United States?

I think I'm going to stick with regular incandescent bulbs until the LED bulbs come down in price.