The Home Depot launches CFL bulb recycling initiative

The Home Depot has launched a national in-store, consumer compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulb recycling program at all 1,973 The Home Depot locations. This free service is the first such offering made so widely available by a retailer in the United States and offers customers additional options for making environmentally conscious decisions from purchase to disposal. The Home Depot Canada launched a CFL recycling program in November, 2007.

At each The Home Depot store, customers can simply bring in any expired, unbroken CFL bulbs, and give them to the store associate behind the returns desk. The bulbs will then be managed responsibly by an environmental management company who will coordinate CFL packaging, transportation and recycling to maximize safety and ensure environmental compliance.

In addition to the CFL recycling program, The Home Depot has also launched an in-store energy conservation program to switch light fixture showrooms in United States stores from incandescent bulbs to CFLs by fall 2008 and save $16 million annually in energy costs.

The CFL recycling program is an extension of The Home Depot’s Eco Options program. Eco Options, launched in April 2007, is a classification that allows customers to easily identify products that have less of an impact on the environment.

Switching from traditional light bulbs to CFLs is an easy change consumers can make to reduce energy use at home. According to the EPA’s Energy Star Program, if every American switched out one incandescent bulb to a CFL, it would prevent more than $600 million in annual energy costs and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions from 800,000 cars. As the largest retailer of light bulbs in the country, The Home Depot sold over 75 million CFLs in 2007, which saved Americans approximately $4.8 billion in energy costs and 51.8 billion pounds in CO2 greenhouse gases over the life of the bulbs.