The Airdrie Recycling Depot is the proud owner of a new bulb eater, a crushing machine that processes, or crushes, spent fluorescent lamps into small fragments.
The recycling depot has accepted fluorescent tube light bulbs for three years, but they had to be shipped away to be recycled at a cost of 26 cents per foot.
“I think this is awesome,” said Mayor Peter Brown.
“We are removing hazardous particles from the landfill. It is tremendous and shows that Airdrie is improving on its recycling opportunities. Protecting the environment is No. 1.”
The bulb eater cost $6,100 but over the past three years the depot recycled 10,436 feet of light bulbs, costing about $2,700.
“This will save money in the long run,” said Susan Grimm, environmental services team leader. “It will pay for itself in no time.”
The bulb eater separates the glass, metal and mercury with a three-stage filtration system.
“The glass is benign after it is separated,” said Jason Thomlison, depot operator.
“With this system, now the mercury is being recycled, where before when we were sending them away to be broken down, the mercury was disposed of.”
Kathleen Muretti, manager of environmental services, said the biggest benefit of the bulb eater is the ability to recycle harmful substances.
“The biggest thing is the fact that we are recovering mercury and keeping it out of the landfill, which eventually gets into the water,” she said.
The bulb eater is the only one in southern Alberta, according to Muretti.
“We encourage residents in Rocky View County and the Airdrie area to use this because they support this facility so they have access to it,” she said.
The Airdrie Recycling Depot only has capacity for residential light bulbs and Muretti said although she hopes the facility will eventually have the capacity for commercial bulbs, that would overwhelm the system now.
The crushed glass is compacted into 55-gallon containers. The containers are then picked up by Air Cycle and transported to a recycling facility.
