Alamos National Lab created machine that eats flourescent bulbs when they're dead

I hope this machine will be sold low enough that local companies can afford to have them available to people to use to safely dispose of them.

BBB

Albuquerque Journal
3/7/11

LOS ALAMOS - Los Alamos National Laboratory is increasing its use of a machine to crush fluorescent bulbs. The northern New Mexico lab says that could save tens of thousands of dollars in waste disposal fees and prevent mercury from escaping into the environment.

The machine known as the Bulb Eater attaches to the top of a 55-gallon drum and works like a large food processor. Workers feed fluorescent bulbs into a tube, which sucks them through propeller-like blades, pulverizing them.

Fluorescent bulbs contain small amounts of mercury vapor. That means they must be labeled, boxed and disposed of as a type of hazardous waste. The Bulb Eater captures the mercury vapor in a three-stage filtering process. It neutralizes the vapor by turning it into mercuric sulfide, which is not hazardous.