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Official development blog for the PARANOIA roleplaying game. No description is available at your security clearance. The Computer is your friend.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

PARANOIA in the real world: Ten steps to handle a broken light bulb 

A modern energy-saving CFL (Compact Fluorescent Lamp) light bulb contains about 5mg of toxic mercury vapor and mercury-containing phosphor powder. Used CFL bulbs must be recycled rather than simply thrown out -- but no, a broken CFL bulb doesn't require a $2,000 cleanup by a professional HazMat crew.

Still, a broken bulb does require careful handling, and the United Kingdom government has risen to this important public policy challenge with a ten-point plan for dealing with broken light bulbs in Parliament.
"The instructions are that the cleaning operative, using protective gloves and wearing a mask, should collect the main fragments of the light bulb and carefully place them in a sturdy box," Mr Harvey wrote.

"All splinters should then be collected using stiff card or paper. The area should then be cleaned using a damp cloth. The splinters and the cloth should then be placed in the box. Once the area is clear and clean, the box should be sealed and labelled with details of the item. The box should then be taken to the waste removal area in the loading bay and passed to the waste disposal contractor in an appropriate manner."

Mr Harvey said the guidelines were necessary and defended his decision to spend time issuing them. He said: "There had been an incident where a light bulb had been broken and placed in a waste paper bin. Someone had picked it out and cut their finger."

BoingBoing reproduces the government agency's ten-step poster, nicely presented in the established Oh-No-We're-All-Doomed graphic style.
Posted by: Allen Varney / 9:27 PM

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