Via Instapundit:

Wal-Mart announced Thursday that its suppliers of compact fluorescent
light bulbs have agreed to dramatically reduce the amount of mercury in
the energy-saving bulbs….

The company said its CFL suppliers — GE, Royal Philips, Osram Sylvania
and Lights of America — "committed to achieving a greater reduction in
mercury content than the 5 mg standard set by the National Electrical
Manufacturers Association earlier this year."

This does provide a slight giggle for me. Yes, less mercury, good thing and so on. But getting the four light bulb companies to agree to this really isn’t all that tough.

For all four of them buy their mercury from just one company. Change the manufacturing process there and they all naturally fall into line. It will also affect all CFLs, not just those sold at Wal-Mart.

(Disclosure, that manufacturer is a customer of mine, not, sadly, for mercury, and as they’re shy people I won’t name them.)