WFAA-TV

With everyone from Al Gore to the Environmental Protection Agency pushing the switch, new energy-efficient, money-saving light bulbs seem like a brilliant idea. However, there are potential health risks with the bulbs that most consumers don't know about.

Every one of the compact fluorescent bulbs contain an environmentally hostile heavy metal, mercury.

According to energy experts, compact fluorescents use 75 percent less electricity, last 10 times longer and save consumers $30 or more over their lifespan. Major retailers have committed to selling millions.

Each bulb contains a trace amount of mercury, about the size of a period on the end of a sentence. While the mercury has to be inhaled to be toxic, according to government warnings, an amount that tiny amount could be just that if a bulb is broken.

James Garrison, with the North Texas Poison Center, said the center has already gotten phone calls concerning the bulbs.

"You can open up your window for about 15 minutes to let the air out after you break it before you go back in," Garrison said. "If it's on your carpet, don't vacuum it. Use some sticky tape to pick it up."

Package labeling warns consumers to follow specific disposal laws for hazardous waste, which most users also don't know about. Throwing them in the traditional garbage is not the correct way to dispose of them, according to the federal government.

The Dallas County Home Chemical Collection Center on Plano Road is one of only three places in North Texas qualified to collect the bulbs, which they say they only get a few a week.

"I fear that people are throwing them away when they're finished with them instead of bringing them into a home chemical collection center," said Sandy Cook, the program's manager.

An even bigger fear is that the trace amounts of mercury tossed in landfills across the country will eventually seep into the water system.

"There are more than a million households in the Dallas area, and if each of those households produces one light bulb a week, you've got a lot of light bulbs," Cook said.

Neither Lowe's or Home Depot, both big sellers of the bulbs, has a recycling program.

At Elliott's Hardware, some educated customers have tried bringing dead bulbs back, but Elliott's doesn't have a special light bulb disposal program either

Retailers hope that will change at some point in the future.

"I do feel that there will be some sort of program rolled out to make it very easy for someone to dispose of it," said Chad Vickers of Current Energy in Dallas.

Dallas resident Eileen Birnbaum said she thought she was doing a good deed for the planet by replacing all her old incandescent bulbs with energy efficient ones. She said she now wonders if doing right environmentally today could be wrong tomorrow.