macbirch, at least your government is mandating some change! So sorry about your experiences, though, and you're right -- particularly for those who know little about greener living options, bad information or a difficult occurance can be a deterrant (I've seen people deliberately forgo recycling and other environmental measures "in protest.") It may be little consolation, but perhaps you could write your officials and/or the companies selling CFL's. Eventually, something has to get through... one hopes.

I saw on the news (US) that tungsten bulbs would be illegal in EU in 2009 and that there was a hue and cry that it was too soon, that they (I don't know who) couldn't make the changes that fast.
I'll guess dimmable CFL's will be available there because there won't be anything else in a few years.
The General Electric lobby is probably too powerful here in the US for that to be mandated here.

In celebration of Earth Day, on Sunday April 22nd, The Home Depot will give
away 1,000,000 Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs to customers who visit any
U.S. The Home Depot Store.

This will result in:

$12 million in savings in annual energy costs
Reduction of 196 million lbs of CO2 emissions - the equivalent of removing
over 70,000 cars from American highways.

*While supplies last and within the 48 contiguous states*

http://www6.homedepot.com/ecooptions/index.html

Here is a link that might be useful: Free CFL's at Home Depot.

Thanks, happycthulhu! Wish Home Depot was within biking distance. ;)

Have you heard about their new "green" labeling and Eco campaigns? That company has been in so much trouble over various practices. Hopefully these labels will be accurate and informative, and not mislead well-intentioned consumers -- or turn them away. Maybe we can all try to keep an eye out.

I remember some years ago our consumer organisation criticised the companies that put pictures of dolphins and other pseudo-environmental stuff on their packaging. Let's hope an independent certification organisation and not the marketing people are in charge of it.

The CFL give-away people are saying you can dispose of old CFL's in your regular bin. The amount of mercury is less than in an incandescent light bulb. Anyone heard anything like this? I don't remember ever hearing that incandescents contain mercury.

macbirch, at least those folks, fully informed or not, are out there bringing the CFL info to the public's attention. That's more than most of us do. As far as organizing to criticise companies for using pictures of dolphins and other "environmental" stuff you may do more real good by getting out there and handing out lightbulbs. Tom

Sorry I didn't make myself clear. Our consumer organisation was criticising companies that were making their products appear environmentally friendly when they either weren't or they had a token benefit while still having undesirable aspects, and some of the claims were irrelevant or downright ridiculous anyway. Can't remember exactly but there were products that never contained the bad ingredient "b" and wouldn't logically require bad ingredient "b" that were being labelled "guaranteed b-free" just because "b" was in the news a lot. The dolphins were being put on products that had nothing to do with dolphins, oceans, anything like that. One product was promoted as producing an environmentally-friendly by-product which wasn't. It was nothing more than an exercise in feel-good marketing with absolutely no substance. Makes people confused and cynical.

I've been interested in environmental issues for about twenty years. Lately it has become fashionable. In some ways that's making things easier for me but in other ways it's not. A lot more information out there, a lot more products. A lot more research.

When we were looking for a new house we saw a couple advertised as solar- passive. One was tri-level with the two storey side almost all glass, the other was single level with lots of glass along one side. They had the "solar-passive look" that's for sure. One faced east, the other west. I don't take the realtor's word for it, I carry a compass.

I think we are at a turning point. We can take it seriously or we can indulge in a feel-good exercise. When people who make a profit or are funded by our taxes to spread the environmental message treat it as a fashionable feel-good exercise I am concerned.

Fine print on smoke alarm instructions says not to be placed within some distance of fluorescent lights. Including CFL's? Another complication?