![]() The supply closets of companies can contain them, as can hardware stores that are closing and other sources. The good news is that it is possible to find a lot of them. So if you are interested in recycling incandescent bulbs profitably, you need large quantities of unused bulbs. But we need to point out that after the filament in an incandescent bulb has burned out, the tungsten that it contained essentially disappeared. Yes, most incandescent bulbs contain small amounts of tungsten carbide (an alloy made up of tungsten and carbon), which is worth about $14/pound. How Much Recyclable Tungsten Is in Incandescent Bulbs, and What Is It Worth? All very bad for Mother Earth.īut the good thing for recyclers is that their elements were made of tungsten, which can sometimes be recycled profitably. They generated excessive amounts of heat, burned out quickly, and then needed to be discarded in large numbers. Why have incandescent bulbs gone away? There are a number of reasons. After you screwed one into a socket and turned on the power, current flowed through a metal filament inside the bulb, causing it to heat up and glow brightly. ![]() These familiar (and now extinct) bulbs were the direct descendants of the original lightbulbs invented by Edison. So overall, they are better for the environment. CFLs are replacing incandescent bulbs because they last longer and generate less heat. Some bulbs don’t look like that their coiled tubes are hidden inside a glass bulb that makes them look like the familiar old incandescent bulbs.ĬFLs are basically tubes that are filled with a gas that is usually made up of mercury vapor and argon when electricity passes through, the gas becomes excited and emits light. In their bulb form, those tubes are coiled and look like corkscrews. They are small, coiled versions of the long fluorescent lightbulbs that have been used for years. Does that mean you can make a lot of money if you collect them and send them to Specialty Metals Smelters and Refiners? Let’s find out. Old incandescent bulbs contained tungsten. ![]() The old incandescent light bulbs that people used for decades have disappeared and been replaced by a variety of new bulbs, most commonly Compact Florescent Lightbulbs called CFL’s, that work much differently from old incandescent bulbs. If you’ve visited the lightbulb aisle at a home superstore lately, you know a big change has taken place.
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