Paint your cookware black!
Seriously, all the fuss over lightbulbs was driven by manufacturers and retailers wanting bigger profits, NOT environmental friendliness.
As Rhyolith says, the dust-to-dust cost is the ONLY true measure, alongside the environmental impact of obtaining the materials and the effect their eventual disposal has on the environment.
I think certain car makers* should have been prosecuted for selling "hybrid" cars:
- for fraud (they're not at all green),
- for extortionate running costs (HOW much is that battery?),
- for environmental damage in manufacturing and scrappage.
Our old lightbulbs used glass (sand), and a bit of tungsten and brass and a small amount of argon. Kind to the environment, cheap to make, and pretty re-cycleable. The new ones... mercury, about a dozen electronic components, plastics, and so on. The components have to be made (in different factories), shipped to the assembly plant, put together, carefully packaged (more fragile than tungsten bulbs!), and sold. No wonder they cost what they do! Then there's the disposal cost, too.
Even LED bulbs need circuitry to drop 240V to the 1-3V they need to operate.
Old bulbs' waste was simply heat. New bulbs (CFLs) emit significant amounts of RF noise, causing interference on wireless systems etc.
To understand 'why,' always follow the money...
E. (the cynic)
PS: CFL contain electrolytic capacitors, so will deteriorate if left unused for long enough, and fail to strike. Tungsten bulbs just sit there, for decades potentially, with no degradation.
PPS: If everyone was told they're driving around with primed explosives less than 15 inches from their faces, who'd want airbags? In the case of my wife and daughters (who are all petite), it's as little as 10", and would probably be fatal if detonated. Tried to get them removed/disabled - main dealership didn't want to know. In the USA, several people every year are killed by steering wheel airbags.
