In honor of Earth Day, Home Depot is giving away one million Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs (CFLs) Sunday, April 22. So exciting. I’m embarrassed to say I’ve never used these bulbs, but have been wanting to try them for awhile. They have a considerably longer life than their traditional, old-school incandescent counterparts – a cool 8,000-15,000 hours compared to the incandescent 750-1000 hours. More importantly, they consume about one fifth the power as the incandescents. And where there are energy savings, there are also cost savings. Although these bulbs cost slightly more than incandescents, the savings in energy costs more than pays for the price of the bulb. And since they last so long, you don’t have to purchase them nearly as often – (apologies for stating the obvious).
Home Depots’ generous giveaway alone will result in:
- $12 million savings in annual energy costs
- reduction of up to 196 million pounds of CO2 emissions, which is the equivalent of removing 70,000 cars from American roads
Hurry to Home Depot Sunday morning to get your CFL while supplies last. Both Ben Franklin and Mother Earth would be proud.
